


It Takes a Village (To Make a Village)

by Inrainbowz



Series: Brother To You [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Childhood, Cute Kids, Developing Friendships, Domestic, Feels, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Hyuuga Family Feels, Kid EVERYONE, Kid Uchiha Sasuke, Kid Uzumaki Naruto, Naruto and Sasuke befriend All The Kids, Slice of Life, all the feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2019-09-17 04:05:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 55,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16967337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inrainbowz/pseuds/Inrainbowz
Summary: There is a lot of kids to befriend in that village.(Part 3 of that AU where Naruto and Sasuke adopt each other during the Academy days)





	1. Rock Lee

**Author's Note:**

> No plot in sight! Well, okay, there's a little plot? Or a least, like, a thread. This will be full to the brim of headcanons about the various Konoha 12 kids. I didn't tag all the relationships cause that's a lot, and I'm not actually sure I'll do 10 chapters, but well. We'll see. 
> 
> If you haven't read Part 1 & 2, you should, but if you don't want to, just know that Naruto and Sasuke have been leaving together for a little while and take care of each other. My tumblr is [here](http://inrainprose.tumblr.com) for updates, fanart, silly comics and various rambling.
> 
> Enjoy!

One hundred and forty-two. One hundred and forty-three. One hundred and forty-four.

At some point, the numbers began to blur together, a continuous string more than a succession of singular points. After one or two hundred, one more didn’t matter all that much. He always found the first ones to be the hardest, and he knew to persevere until he reached that state where he would just go on, carried by the numbers and the motion.

One hundred and forty-five. One hundred and forty-six.

Numbers were an easy thing to control. If he said “I’ll do one hundred and fifty kicks”, there was no ambiguity, no way around it. It was clear, simple. He just had to reach his goal and that was it. Giving up midway wasn’t even an option. If he wanted to stop, he had to reach the right number.

One hundred and forty-seven. One hundred and forty-eight.

There was a noise behind him. Some shuffling, leaves rustling softly. He really hoped it wasn’t some of his classmates who had discovered his training spot yet again to make fun of him. He was getting tired of having to change all the time, and he liked this particular clearing and its abandoned training posts that probably hadn’t seen that much action in decades.

He didn’t lose focus though. Numbers first. He felt deeply unsettled if he had to stop for whatever reason before reaching his mark. He could always resume after an interruption, but it felt off somehow.

One hundred and forty-nine. One hundred and fifty.

Lee lowered his legs and spun around to face the intruders.

Instead of the mocking faces of his classmates though, he only caught glimpses of blond hair picking out from behind a tree. Whoever was there, they were bad at hiding, and even worse at being discreet.

“I told you he’d be there!” a young voice whispered loudly. “Go talk to him!”

“What? Why me? You go talk to him!” a second voice answered, biting tone badly hiding its panic.

“You’re the one who wanted to meet him!”

“I… I didn’t say that! I just said his taijutsu looked cool!”

“Well go tell him that!”

“No! What…”

There was some shuffling, a few exclamations, and two boys tumbled down the ground from behind the tree, half fighting, half trying to untangle their flailing limbs.

“Get off me you idiot!”

“Hey! You’re the idiot!”

“Huh… Hello?”

They both frowned before scrambling to their feet, mumbling accusations at each other.

One was blond, the other had black hair and black eyes. It was funny because they looked nothing alike, except for the matching expression of angry embarrassment on their face. Lee was pretty sure he had seen them around the Academy and the training grounds before, always together. He may have heard their names, but they escaped him now. Lee tended to keep to himself, since not many kids wanted to hang out with him anyway. They had to be younger than him by a year or two.

“Hello, hi. Sorry. My name is Uzumaki Naruto and this is Uchiha Sasuke.”

The blond, Naruto, elbowed his friend in the rib. The other boy frowned but mumbled a reluctant “hello”.

“I’m… Rock Lee,” Lee offered in return, unsure of what he was supposed to do.

“It’s nice to meet you, Lee!” Naruto exclaimed brightly, like it was, indeed, very nice.

“You too.”

The two boys fell silent, rocking on their feet and avoiding eye contact, while Lee wondered how to ask what they were doing there without sounding rude. He was nowhere near done with his training for the day, he wanted to go back to it, but that wouldn’t do to just turn around and resume beating the training post, right?

“Sorry! But if there is nothing…”

“Sasuke wanted to ask you something!”

The dark-haired boy, Sasuke, cast a betrayed look at his blond friend, but the other boy pushed him forward with what he probably thought was an encouraging gesture. Sasuke took a few steps forward, face reddening progressively. He looked angry, fists closed and tensed all over, but when he spoke, all Lee could hear was a boy being shy, and then being mad about it.

Sasuke mumbled something completely unintelligible, that Lee, despite all his good will, couldn’t hope to decipher. Naruto seemed to have better luck, but to also recognize that it wasn’t actually understandable, because he nudged his friend’s ribs again, earning a dark glare that only made him shrug. Sasuke’s frown deepened, but he took a deep breath to try again.

“I saw you training. You’re very good at taijutsu. Can I train with you please.”

The boy would have seemed rude, if he wasn’t blushing and pouting. He was completely serious though, and as he finally worked up the courage to meet Lee’s gaze, Lee saw great determination on his face.

“Really?” he couldn’t help but ask. The name Uchiha was familiar to him – they used to be among the elite clan, and Lee seemed to recall and Uchiha being top of the class below his.

Before Sasuke could answer though, Naruto jumped in, apparently done with forcing his friend to do the talking.

“We were watching you at the Academy the other day! You laid aaaaaall the others flat on their back! You’re fast too! Sasuke loves taijutsu so we followed you at the training ground because he wanted to spy on you, but I told you we could just ask! I don’t like taijutsu that much though…”

“That’s because you’re lazy! And I wasn’t… we weren’t _spying_. We were just… looking around.”

Naruto raised a skeptical eyebrow while Sasuke reddened even more, indignant.

“I-I’m flattered! But, shouldn’t you find a more experienced teacher?” Lee asked, still very confused about the whole thing. Sure, he was good at taijutsu, better than most kids his age. He had to. If he wanted to amount to anything, he simply didn’t have a choice. But he couldn’t very well train others, could he? He was just… Lee. He wasn’t that great.

Naruto seemed to lose a bit of his cheers and the boys exchanged uncomfortable looks.

“Nah, adults are dumb!” Naruto exclaimed, but his smile looked forced this time. Sasuke took a step, looking like he had found some confidence. Lee watched, bewildered, as the boy _bowed,_ solemn.

“Please let us train with you, sensei.”

And he was _dead serious._

It was Lee’s turn to redden, flustered, as Naruto put together a hasty bow to imitate his friends. They stood back and watched him intently, waiting for his answer with batted breath and hope in their eyes. They looked… they looked like this was serious. Like this was important somehow.

It was… It was kind of awesome.

“Al-Alright! If you insist, you can train with me!” he exclaimed with more force than necessary, hands on his hips in what he hoped was a cool pause. Judging by the stars in the boys’ eyes, maybe it was.

“Let’s start right away!” he said, needing only a few seconds to remember where they had interrupted his daily routine. “Two hundred push-ups!”

Their eyes widened at the same time.

“ _What?_ ”

.

“He’s crazy.”

“No he’s not! He’s the coolest!”

Sasuke didn’t want to dispute that, because Lee _was_ pretty cool. But he was also…

“Crazy!”

“You say that cause you can’t do two hundred push-ups!”

“No kids can do two hundred push-ups! You couldn’t either!” Sasuke exclaimed. Naruto had still held on better than him, and that was infuriating. For someone who was so bad at fighting, he had a lot of brute strength lying around.

“Well Lee can, obviously,” Naruto shot back. Sasuke couldn’t dispute that either. Lee _had_ been able to do two hundred push-ups, and then one hundred sit-ups, and then one hundred squats. His most impressive feat was probably that he had managed to actually tire Naruto out. Sasuke didn’t think it was possible.

By the time they had reached the part of Lee’s routine where he actually did some taijutsu, they were both too worn out to put up much of a fight. The boy hadn’t seemed to mind though, urging them to get on their feet and try anyway.

“That’s because he’s crazy,” Sasuke mumbled, still a bit bitter over the entire situation. Lee had wiped him out in three moves. Sasuke was supposed to be _good_ at this.

“Yeah, crazy strong!”

Naruto grinned, proud of his joke. Sasuke rolled his eyes but failed to hide a smile. Crazy strong, that was the right way to put it. Crazy strong and crazy fast, but mostly, crazy determined. He wasn’t from a known clan, as far as Sasuke understood he didn’t have a master or even a relative to train him. He had gotten there all on his own, by training tirelessly day after day. Sasuke himself trained a lot more than most of the other academy students, but he was still nowhere near Lee’s level. He bit angrily at the meat bun they had bought on their way home, knowing they wouldn’t have it in them to cook.

“Hey, we’ll… we’ll go back, right? To train with him.”

Sasuke looked at Naruto, puzzled, to find him looking back questioningly and a bit worried. Lee had said he would keep training there in that clearing and that they could go back anytime.

“Why do you ask that?”

“I don’t know, you look… you look mad or something.”

Sasuke pondered at it while he munched on his meat buns. He was mad, in a way. Mad that just the year above them there was someone that much stronger than him, when his objective was much higher than that. He wasn’t mad at Lee though. Lee was stronger and that was it.

Sasuke just had to get stronger too. He wouldn’t be outdone.

“We’ll go back,” he said firmly. “…Maybe not every day though,” he was forced to amend, shuddering at the idea of going through Lee’s training every single day. Maybe they could, at some point. When they were ten like him. “I’ll beat him someday,” he added, more to himself than to Naruto.

His friend fell silent, and it’s only once they were back home, drinking tea on the floor of the living room, that he spoke again.

“Say, Sasuke. Why is it that you… that you want to be stronger?”

Naruto wore his every emotion on his face, he couldn’t be subtle to save his life. His moods were easy to read. Right now he was curious, but also a little worried, and Sasuke reflected that he had to know the answer, in a way.

"I have to bring justice to my clan," Sasuke said through gritted teeth. It felt weird to say it aloud for the first time, while it had been on his mind pretty much from the get-go, from the minutes he had woken up orphaned and clanless at the hospital. Maybe even before that, when he had stumbled onto the first victim, when he had realized what had happened. Even before he knew who he would seek justice from.

“Justice,” Naruto said thoughtfully into his cup. Sasuke expected him to ask more questions, but he knew when to let things go, sometimes.

It wasn’t that surprising anyway, was it? Of course Sasuke needed to get stronger. He was the last member of the Uchiha clan, and he had a duty to his clan and family.

It’s true he hadn’t thought about it that much, these past few months. But it was still there, always, lurking in a corner of his mind. Sasuke knew what he had to do, and he would do anything in order to achieve it.

He shook his head, unwilling to fall into those dark thoughts right now, and focused on Naruto instead.

“What about you? Why do you want to get stronger?”

Naruto spoke into his cup again.

“I need to, if I want to be made Hokage.”

He had been saying that more and more. Not “I’ll be the next Hokage” but “I’ll be made the next Hokage”. He had also started to pay more attention in class. Sasuke didn’t think Naruto would put so much weight on his words, that what he had said would have so much influence on his behavior.

Naruto listened to him. It was… pleasing.

“And if I want to stay by your side.”

That last bit, mumbled hastily, had Sasuke look away, split between annoyance and a sudden warmth soothing his earlier anguish. Naruto was looking away too, cheeks pink and badly faked indifference.

“We need to train,” Sasuke concluded, because really, there was no way around it. Naruto nodded vigorously, and they went to bed.

Sasuke had yet to sleep in his own room.

.

Once upon a time, Lee was excited to enter the Academy.

He was excited to finally discover something beyond the orphanage, to make new friends and have a life of his own, and to take the first steps into becoming a powerful shinobi. A lot of kids tried out the first few years of the Academy, civilians and ninjas alike, because it didn’t require any specific skills, at first. It was general study and basic training, and for a while, Lee had enjoyed it immensely.

And then, they started ninjutsu practice.

Lee had always been determined, headstrong. He was already training more than necessary at the time, because he wanted to shape his body and mind as soon as possible, not to waste any time to start working on his goals. He threw himself into ninjutsu and genjutsu training, harder and harder when it appeared that things that came naturally to most of his classmates eluded him.

It was at that point that a lot of kids dropped out of the Academy. It was the first selection, the first weeding out. Those who had no talent for chakra manipulation were pushed out the door.

But there was no way, no way Lee was letting that happen to him.

He _would_ become a ninja. He would join the rank of the fighters of the village, no matter what it took. The sentence dropped, after he took some tests with the Academy teachers – he would never be able to perform either ninjutsu nor genjutsu.

Never, ever. It was simply impossible for him.

To them, the consequence was clear – he just had to let it go. He couldn’t become a ninja.

But there was no way. No way he would go back to the orphanage, head hanging low, to hear the head nurse tell him he should have listened to her and stick to the gutter like the other kids did. No way he would give his classmates and teachers the satisfaction of giving up, of going away. Lee didn’t care what they thought about him – he wanted to become a ninja, and a ninja he would become.

And without ninjutsu or genjutsu, he could only focus on taijutsu.

They kept telling him he should give up, but they couldn’t expel him either, because he was a good, dedicated student, and he _was_ good at taijutsu. Not at first, but slowly, month after month and training after training, he became good enough that he could beat all the other kids in their class in hand-to-hand sparing, and even good enough that he could beat most of them when they did use chakra.

The Academy stopped being nice and fun, he became the bottom of every joke, the subject of every mockery, but it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t stay there forever. Once he graduated, he would be a shinobi for real, and no one would be able to take that away from him.

Lee kept training. Kept striving to be the best at the only thing he could master.

Kept watching Hyuuga Neji’s back, miles away from him, who was excellent at everything, including staring down at Lee. But Lee would catch up to him someday. In months, years, decades maybe, he would beat him, and then no one would ever be able to say he wasn’t a real shinobi.

For now though, they were still plenty of people to say it. And it had been a long time since he had really cared about his classmates mean words, but this time he did. He did care, because Naruto and Sasuke had approached him right there in the middle of the Academy’s courtyard, where all his classmates could see.

“So, can we train with you today? We can right?” Naruto shouted excitedly. Lee stuttered an answer, dread dropping at the bottom of his stomach as he caught Katsu raising a mocking eyebrow.

He and his friends came over to them, just as Lee had feared. Classes were over for the day. Usually Lee left the Academy as soon as possible specifically to avoid that kind of situation.

“You want to train with that guy?” Katsu asked, voice laced with contempt, pointing a thumb at Lee’s chest.

“He’s our taijutsu master,” Sasuke answered evenly, a slight frown on his face at being addressed like that. Lee spluttered at the blunt affirmation – they wouldn’t drop the master no matter how much he asked (he didn’t really want them to).

“Lee? What master can you be, Lee? That guy can’t even do ninjutsu!” Katsu’s friend exclaimed loud enough for everyone to hear. Lee fought not to drop his head down. He didn’t want to show how they could affect him, but he could feel his eyes watering all the same.

It was nice, hanging out with Sasuke and Naruto. It was hectic and off-putting as they disrupted his routine over and over, but it wasn’t bad. They were eager and excitable – both of them, albeit in very different ways – and they were truly impressed with him.

Because Lee was damn good at taijutsu. There was no denying it. But for his classmates, it didn’t matter. He could have been the best taijutsu master in the whole world, it still wouldn’t have been enough in their eyes. Because he couldn’t do ninjutsu, and so whatever he did, he wasn’t good enough, he would never be.

Lee stared at a point far away, avoiding to look at the two boys he had thought maybe he would become friend with, wondering if they would join in on the joke, if they would be mad that he had deceived them. It had just never come up. They had never asked anything more than taijutsu lessons, and Lee had been too happy to hide his shameful secret from them.

Movement caught his gaze though, and he focused back on the scene to look at Sasuke taking one step toward Katsu.

He stared at him dead in the eye and spelled out with exaggerated care, like he was addressing a particularly slow child, “he’s our tai-ju-tsu master.” And then he added for extra precision, “taijutsu, as in not ninjutsu.”

The others kids were so caught off guard, for a moment they just stood mouth open and eyes wide, looking at Sasuke’s emotionless face while Naruto snickered behind his back. Lee couldn’t tell if Sasuke was being genuinely helpful, or being a total brat – he had found himself wondering more than once, because the boy played innocent very well.

Katsu had no such interrogations though. His expression turned stormy at being insulted like this, and he lunged forward, fist out and ready for a punch.

Before anyone could react though, Sasuke ducked swiftly and swept the boy’s legs from under him. Without a care for his adversary, he then bolted right back up and spun around to stare at Lee with wide, unblinking eyes.

“It’s the move you taught us last time!” Naruto staged whispered with zero discretion. Sasuke was still staring at Lee, expectant. Sasuke was of very few words, and what Lee had first thought to be aloofness or even disdain – Sasuke reminded him of Neji in many ways – was actually just plain shyness and reserve. He wasn’t a talker, but Naruto talked more than enough for the two of them, and understood his friend beyond words. As a result, he often played translator, seemingly always knowing what it was Sasuke wanted to say but couldn’t articulate.

After a few seconds of confusion, Lee finally got it.

“Oh! You’re right! Very well done, Sasuke!”

It was subtle, barely noticeable. But Sasuke’s cheeks did redden slightly, and he gave the smallest nod as his face softened in an almost smile, pride shining through.

“It’s a move Lee taught us last time,” Naruto repeated helpfully to Katsu trying to get back to his feet. He looked enraged, but before things could go any further, Iruka sensei’s angry voice ringing through the courtyard had all the kids still present scurrying away in various direction.

“So, Lee! Can we train with you today?” Naruto asked again as if nothing had happened. Lee nodded dumbly, and they took the direction of the clearing.

Lee waited anxiously for the subject to be broached again, but it never came. Naruto was chatting happily about what they had made for lunch that day while Sasuke was engaged into some deep internal reflections that had his face all scrunched up. Lee couldn’t just let it go though. He wasn’t one to back up, even from a hard situation.

“It’s true, you know. I can’t use ninjutsu.”

“Naruto can’t either,” Sasuke answered without missing a beat.

“Hey! I can! I’m just not very good at it!”

“You’re rubbish at it! So technically, you can’t.”

“You’re so mean!”

Another thing that contrasted Sasuke’s apparent rudeness and cold demeanor – he was rarely insulting for real. And if he was…

"Sorry. We'll figure it out, I swear," he mumbled under his breath, serious as always. Naruto's frown disappeared – he was never upset for long. He nodded with determination before focusing back on Lee.

“I have to get good at most things if I want to be made Hokage,” he explained, like that explained anything at all.

Lee decided that it didn’t matter either way. They didn’t care. They didn’t care that he was only a half shinobi, that there were a lot of things he could never teach them.

And if they didn’t care, neither would he. And he would teach them what he could.

“Okay guys. Race you to the clearing!” he exclaimed before bolting, followed quickly by Naruto who shouted in excitement, and a much more grumbling Sasuke who started running nonetheless, unable to leave the challenge unanswered.

Lee arrived first and by a wild margin. The two boys were out of breath but they both stood straight in front of him with a “ready to train, sensei!” in sync that they did to embarrass him. It worked.

“Let’s go then!”

Lee had just made some friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They say Lee and Naruto's friendship, I raise you Lee and Sasuke's friendship and also Sasuke being super impressed with him.
> 
> I was SO SURE Lee was canonically an orphan? It's never explicit but it's extrapolated cause his parents and family are never mentioned in any way. I've seen people convinced that he was Guy's son x) I really like Lee, he's a pure nugget. Next chapter will be Kiba! Hope you enjoyed, let me know!


	2. Kiba

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I usually post my chapters right before bed, and by the magic of timezones it's morning or the middle of the day for you people. I wake up the next morning and I have your comments to make my day! The first chapter had like, fifteen already when I woke up? I love all of you.
> 
> Another light-hearted chapter before we get into more heavy feelings stuff. I had fun writing this chapter, I hope you'll have fun reading it!
> 
> (be aware that a dog gets kicked off-screen in this chapter :/ sorry about that)

It wasn’t that Kiba was jealous or anything. It wasn’t that.

Who would get jealous over dumb Naruto anyway? He didn’t care that he now spent all his time with Sasuke and was never up to pull pranks anymore. He still came to the park with Kiba and Shikamaru and Choji – even if Sasuke was always there too now. In fact, he was there right now, reading on his bench while the others played Ninjas versus Samurais in the playground. Kiba and Naruto were the ninjas, and they were waiting for the samurais to launch their attack – which could take a while, since Shikamaru needed to come up with his absurd battle plans first. Naruto kept sneaking glances at Sasuke like he was afraid he would vanish all of the sudden. If Sasuke wanted to leave, would Naruto say “sorry guys, gotta go!” and they would leave together. Naruto used to stay longer and it was cool.

That’s all. He wasn’t jealous or sad, just annoyed.

And above all, he was disappointed, because Naruto had promised, he’d _promised_ he would help Kiba get revenge on the mean old man that owned the juice and ice cream joint next to the Academy. He had thrown them out one day because he said Akamaru was being messy, which wasn’t true at all, without giving them their drinks or their money back, and they had vowed they would get revenge.

Kiba could have pranked the man on his own, but where was the fun in that? Besides, he had to admit Naruto really was the best at pranking. He always had funny ideas and clever plans, and they rarely got caught, or not before they had pulled it off anyway.

Naruto had promised, and now he didn’t want to do it anymore.

“I just… Sasuke would not approve,” Naruto said, looking at the other boy like he could hear them all the way from his boring bench.

“Who cares what Sasuke thinks?” Kiba exclaimed, fed up with the boy’s sudden cold feet, when Naruto had never cared about anyone’s opinion before.

“I do,” he said simply, frowning. Kiba rolled his eyes. Akamaru let out an angry bark.

“You promised! I can’t do it on my own! Besides…”

Kiba’s mouth clicked shut. He didn’t want to beg or to guilt-trip Naruto into accepting. If he wanted to drop out, good for him. Kiba would just manage on his own.

“Besides what? And why are you so mad at him anyway? It’s not like he was the worse or anything…”

It was kind of true. Kiba wasn’t nearly as unpopular as Naruto with Konoha’s shopkeepers, but he could make a good case for second place. They were always saying he was too loud and dirty, that his dog was too messy when he was better behaved than their own children, and they always watched him like he was going to run away without paying or do some damages to their shop. He’d seen his mother get into enough arguments with them to know that it wasn’t new, and it wasn’t going away anytime soon.

In fact, it was what had lead their clan to retreat to the edge of the village, far enough that they wouldn’t get complaints every two days for noise, smell, damages, from people living two blocks away from the main house and unlikely to have crossed path with a dog in the past five years.

So yeah, a lot others were just a bad. Except…

“So?”

“So what? He’s just the worse, that’s all!”

“If you don’t tell me, I don’t help you!”

Naruto crossed his arms and raised one eyebrow – or tried to anyway, which made him lift both and look stupid – and really, it was such a Sasuke pause, it wasn’t even funny.

“Then don’t! I don’t need you anyway!” Kiba screamed before turning away, hands in his pockets and shoulders hunched. He’d just surrender to the samurais and be done with the day. Naruto sucked and that was it.

“Wait, wait!”

The blond boy appeared in front of him, too close for comfort.

“Tell me!” he demanded, just centimeters away, gaze fixated on Kiba’s reddening face.

He hadn’t told his mother because he didn't want her to cause a scene and get banned from yet another store. And because it was his fault he had not paid enough attention.  He had lied to Hana when he’d said he didn’t know how his dog had been hurt.

It was more difficult to lie to Naruto, for some reasons.

“We ran into him in the street the other day. Like, _ran into him,_ and Akamaru ran into his legs and almost tripped him and… and that _dick_ kicked him. He kicked him hard.”

Kiba grimaced, angry and ashamed at the memory, because it’s not like there was anything he could do then. The man was big and Kiba… really wasn’t. He’d yelled at him but the man had yelled right back, and no one around had seen anything, or if they had they hadn’t cared to help. The man barely apologized, saying he had acted on instinct, that it was Kiba's fault for not looking after his “damn dog”. And he was right, wasn’t he? It was Kiba’s job to look after Akamaru, and he had failed him.

He sucked. And people sucked too. Everything sucked.

Naruto’s eyes dropped to Akamaru, safely tucked in Kiba’s jacket. He raised a hand as if to pet him and Kiba almost told him off, but Naruto’s hand hovered without touching as Akamaru sniffed it carefully. The dog was the one to stretch his neck and pock Naruto’s hand gently.

“Is he alright?” the boy asked, concern all over his face.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, I’ll help,” he said, determined, no trace left of his earlier hesitations. “But no telling Sasuke. I don’t want him to get mad.”

“No telling me what?”

Naruto jumped out of his skin and right on Kiba, who managed to catch him and prevent them both from kissing the ground by sheer luck.

“Nothing!” Naruto exclaimed. Kiba rolled his eyes. Could he at least try to be convincing? Sasuke narrowed his eyes at both of them, but when Kiba thought he was going to drill them for answers, he just shrugged carelessly and said they needed to depart soon before going back to his bench. What a killjoy.

Naruto stared after him with a worried expression, biting his lips over some dilemma Kiba didn’t want to deal with. He asked again, just to be sure.

“So… You’ll help right? Please?” he added as an afterthought. He really didn’t want to do it alone. Besides, it would be fun right? They always had fun when they messed around together.

“I’ll help.”

.

Truth be told, Naruto was pretty excited by the perspective of new mischief with Kiba. Kiba was fun to be around – he was brash and kinda rude, but never in a mean way. He looked like he didn’t care about what everyone was thinking of him, and Naruto envied that. He wished he could be that indifferent to others’ ill words.

Plus, their pranking was legendary. Some plans simply were a two-man job, like the one they had come up with to get back at Mean Drink Guy.

Naruto was pretty sure Sasuke wouldn't approve though. Sasuke was a stickler for rules who had never been known to do anything susceptible to get him punished or even lightly scolded – save from talking in class, which was recent and only in the interest of dragging Naruto out of his dead-last spot. He’d expressed his disdain for Naruto's general antics that disturbed classes, made him look like a fool, or got him into trouble often enough that Naruto could guess what his reaction would be to this.

It would be fine. They just had to not get caught.

“Akamaru will stand guard,” Kiba said as they unlocked the door that lead into Mean Drink Guy’s backyard. “I’ll go cause the distraction.”

The man lived above the shop with his wife but she was rarely seen around there, being a devoted member of the Konoha Mean Circle of Gossip. They gathered on the benches near the marketplace every day to talk about the news, the weather, how scandalous it was that this someone and that other someone were going out or breaking up, and how dirty Naruto’s clothes were.

Naruto snuck into the backyard, careful to stay close to the wall so that he couldn’t be seen from the inside of the shop – the back door was open. Kiba was supposed to cause enough of a commotion that the man would be too busy to notice Naruto getting into his shop. The boy was cradling a small plant in his hand, wondering what the optimal spot would be for it.

Kiba had suggested dog poo, but that was disgusting, and more importantly, easy to spot and get rid off. But the plant he was holding, and that had him wrinkle his nose in distaste, was another matter entirely. He had stumbled upon it while wandering the forest once and had used it for similar pranks ever since. It looked innocent enough, even a little pretty, with its little yellow flowers and big leaves, but the plant had one major inconvenient – or, in this case, advantage. It stunk.

It stunk really bad. Naruto had made the unfortunate discovery because he had brought some home the first time, to put in one of his pot on the windowsill. Big mistake. He had no idea plants could smell like this – like rotten meat in a garbage pile. The funny part was, it had taken him a while to even notice that’s where the smell came from.

Hence, the brilliant idea that if he had been tricked by it, others would be too.

“AKAMARU! Akamaru, where are you?”

That was the signal. Kiba really had a powerful voice. Naruto, crouching right next to the back door, heard the man behind his counter grumble about “those damn kids and their filthy pets” and start to yell at Kiba to cut it. Kiba only screamed louder. He wasn’t a bad actor really, playing the increasing panic of the worried dog owner pretty well to Naruto’s ears. Of course, Akamaru was dutifully watching the backyard door and knew it was all an act – it would take a specific word form Kiba for him to go rushing back.

After a minute, the man finally got enough and Naruto heard him round the counter so that he could step outside to yell at Kiba properly. Naruto had asked the boy several times if he was sure he wanted to do it this way, if he really didn’t mind being yelled at and maybe insulted. Kiba had only grinned and said he would enjoy the man’s face getting redder and redder as he got angry, his speech more and more incoherent in his rage. Naruto hated people yelling at him, he couldn’t help yell back in hope they would back off (it didn’t work), but it’s true Kiba always looked supremely calm when it happened to him, always sporting an infuriating grin that made whatever adult yelling even angrier, which was the point really.

Naruto sneaked into the shop bent in half so that he would be hidden by the counter. It was clean but cluttered and he had to be very careful not to disturb anything. There were some sad looking plants lined up on the counter, and Naruto wrinkled his nose at their poor state. Now wasn’t the time to let his emotions take over though. Peering above the wooden plank to make sure no one was looking in his direction, he set his own pot in the middle of the others, shuffling them a little so that the arrangement looked natural. The poor care the plants seemed to be getting would work to his advantage – Stinky wouldn’t get noticed.

Crouching back down, he snooped around to see what else he could mess with, since the screaming match was still going on outside. He was famous for his more in-your-face mischief, for painting over official posters on the walls and pulling up traps in the administration buildings, but those were the flashy, look-at-me pranks. The other kind went unnoticed, as they should. The stinky plant, or unscrewing the joint of the water tap, or pouring salt into the sugar jar – things that wouldn’t get noticed immediately, not before they were long gone. Iruka-sensei always said vindication was bad, but Iruka-sensei had surely never been banned from a restaurant because he had whiskers. Kiba and him had pranked a lot of people this way without no one ever knowing. They pranked people who were mean to animals, or older kids who bullied smaller ones. They were like secret vigilantes. 

Naruto finished propping up a fork in the cutlery drawer so that it would be stuck close the next time someone tried to open it and decided to wrap it up. The man had resigned himself to call for Akamaru too, since that was the only way Kiba would eventually shut up. The boy wasn't doing anything wrong per se, the man couldn't very well punish him for looking for his dog, especially since the screams had probably drawn other passersby’s attention too.

The plan had gone off without a hitch.

That was, until Naruto heard footsteps coming from behind him.

He ducked under the cooking counter lining the wall, just behind the fridge. He peered over the edge to get a look, heart beating wildly in his chest. The door, leading upstairs probably, opened on Mean Drink Guy’s wife, who came to stand just in front of the back door and leaned on the counter to watch the scene outside.

She was standing between him and the exit.

Naruto looked around, frantic, but he was backed into a corner with no escape. She wasn’t supposed to be here! His heart was beating wildly in his chest, so loud he was sure she would hear him. There was no way he would be able to climb on the counter top and go out the window without being heard or seen. What was he going to do?

They would kill him dead if they found him here. They would tell the Hokage. What if he got very mad? What if he went back on his decision to leave Naruto and Sasuke be? _That_ was the reason why he had sworn off pranking, had sworn he would behave from now on. How could he have forgotten that?

Well, he wanted to prank Mean Drink Guy with Kiba. But if he got caught… What would Sasuke say? If they got into real trouble because of him? Naruto bit his lip hard, trying to figure a way out of this. He was sweating profusely – his heart was going to explode, he felt like throwing up, which was just too awful to even think about.

“Oh, hello boys!” the woman exclaimed loudly. Naruto jumped, miraculously avoiding bumping into something. He needed a second to understand she wasn’t talking to him. “What can I do for you?”

“Ice cream,” came a grumpy voice in a tone that conveyed no desire for ice cream whatsoever. A grumpy voice Naruto knew very well.

It was Sasuke.

“Very well! Which flavor?”

The ice cream display was at the other end of the counter. The woman’s leg passed in front of Naruto and took a few more steps, rounding the shelves so that she could point at the various flavor. Naruto heard Sasuke ask about what was in this one or that. He didn’t even _like_ ice cream.

She asked if the others wanted anything, and Choji’s voice gave a loud approbation while Shikamaru’s declined. Naruto didn’t stick around to find out more though – the coast was clear now that the woman was busy this side of the room. Holding his breath, trying to keep his nausea at bay, he crawled out of his hiding spot and toward the door, stopping his mad crouching run only when he was safe on the other side of the fence. He almost stepped on Akamaru’s tail.

.

Another minute and Kiba would have upped the ante and accuse the old man of having kidnapped his dog, just for the hell of it, but Naruto and Akamaru came tumbling down the back alley next to the shop, and Kiba dropped to his knees to receive his dog in his arms, playing happy relief to perfection. If the ninja thing didn’t work out, he was sure he could try his luck as a comedian. He even made a show of thanking the man for his help. The shopkeeper stomped his feet and went back to his joint fuming and cursing, just as Shikamaru and Choji exited it.

Sasuke was there too.

Kiba ignored him and turned to Naruto, out of breath and red all over, panting hands on his knees in the middle of the street.

“So? Did you make it?”

Naruto nodded and stood back up. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand.

“I almost got caught. The woman was there.”

“Seriously? How did you escape her?”

Instead of answering Naruto’s gaze shifted to Sasuke – the three boys had just joined them.

“Sasuke had a sudden craving for ice cream,” Shikamaru said by way of an explanation. Kiba couldn’t decipher the tone of his voice. Not that he ever could – Shikamaru was incomprehensible most of the time.

Naruto was trying to catch Sasuke’s gaze, but the boy stubbornly avoided it, looking sideways.

“Sasuke…”

“Let’s go.”

He started walking and they all fell into step with him, having nothing better to do – and chased away by a “what is that _smell”_ coming from the shop that had Kiba and Naruto pick up pace.

“What’s his problem,” Kiba mumbled, hoping to drag Naruto into a bit of back talking, since they couldn’t even enjoy their success properly, but the blond was eyeing the other boy worriedly, biting his lips like he was trying to keep himself from talking.

Predictably, it didn’t last long.

“I’m sorry I lied,” he blurted after catching up to Sasuke’s speed. “I should have just told you what we were up to.”

Sasuke didn’t answer. Kiba could see the tense line of his shoulders from behind, could imagine his scold. He always looked so grim. What was he angry at anyway? Naruto seemed to know though, since he kept talking.

“I’ll… I’ll ask you, next time. So you can join in.”

Still no answer. Kiba was about to open his mouth and say something, not liking Sasuke ignoring Naruto like this, but Sasuke did answer, in a way. He didn’t say a word, but he let out a “hm” that Kiba imagined was an affirmative, and shoved his ice cream into Naruto’s direction.

Chocolate-strawberry, if Kiba had to guess. He recognized it because he had bought ice cream with Naruto enough time to recognize his favorite disgusting combination.

Naruto took it with a shy smile and they resumed walking, a little closer this time. Kiba couldn’t help but stare.

Naruto had almost gotten caught by the old man’s wife. Sasuke had gone to get ice cream out of the blue even if he apparently didn’t want it. Sasuke was… mad because he wasn’t in on their prank?

Sasuke was so _weird._

Kiba turned to Choji and Shikamaru for some support, but the former just smiled around his own ice cream and the later shrugged with his usual “what do I know” expression. Kiba rolled his eyes.

All his friends were huge idiots.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're an idiot too Kiba that's why you all work out so well.
> 
> Okay so I know I make it look like all and every adult in Konoha SUCKS BALLS, but I'm sure it's not that bad. The kids don't know all the villagers after all. There must be some nice ones. Somewhere XD That plant is made up, it doesn't exist (as far as I know). There is a tropical plant that does smell like rotten corpse and excrement, it [look like this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amorphophallus_titanum). So, not very subtle x) Fortunately for me, this is fantasy land, where I can make up any plant I want.
> 
> I'm glad I could bring up pranking Naruto! I love the headcanon that he was actually god tier at that art. I also like the one of the Inuzuka being a bit estranged from the rest of the village. We'll see more of them in the future! I'm sorry Konoha sucks so bad here x) classic case of people complaining about absolutely everything for whatever reason. My take is that there is kind of a rift between the civilians and the ninjas? The civilians think the ninjas are scary, weird and dangerous, and the ninjas think the civilians are weak, soft and ignorant. Naruto I'm starting to have trouble understanding why you like that place so much.
> 
> Next chapter will be longer and heavy on the feels, both good and bad. It will be Angst & Fluff, in that order! I really like that outsider POV thing, but I'm bringing back the emotional talking :p sorry for the rambling, hit me up on [tumblr](http://inrainprose.tumblr.com), peace!


	3. Tenten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To celebrate the end of the year cheers, here is a long-ass chapter, as long as the previous two combined, full to the brim with feels of all sorts. Really all sort to the point I'm not sure I managed to make sense of them all. That chapter was a paaaaain to write, I kept mixing it all up and forgetting what I wanted them to say. But well, it's done now, I hope you'll enjoy!

The bell above the door jingled softly as Sasuke and Naruto entered the weapon shop. Naruto tried his best to hide behind Sasuke in like, a subtle way. Going to the shop was always a bit of a gamble for him, especially when, like this one, it was small, empty, and thus guaranteed to put him in the direct line of sight of the shopkeepers.

“Hello and welcome to… Oh, hi Sasuke!”

Naruto’s eyes widened as he peered above Sasuke’s shoulders. The girl standing behind the counter was just a little older than them, with two high buns on each side of her skull and a friendly smile turned toward them. He’d seen her around the Academy but he had never approached her in any way.

His surprise only grew when Sasuke, who couldn’t be bothered to let out a simple “good morning” when he arrived in class, answered with a “Hello Tenten”, mumbled, yes, but legible despite being hidden in his collar. Naruto stared at him intently but Sasuke stubbornly looked away.

“And you are?” the girl asked. Naruto was too mind blown to answer though.

“You made a friend?” he asked Sasuke, who winced at the volume of his voice. “You’re Sasuke’s friend?" he asked the girl this time, hoping he’d have better luck at an answer. She chuckled, amused.

“I guess I am,” she answered with a look at the other boy demanding confirmation. Sasuke was blushing, burying deeper into his collar, and Naruto almost missed the “yeah” that filtered out of his shirt.

Sasuke had made a friend. A friend! All on his own! He didn’t know why, but that made him absurdly happy. He knew Sasuke spent a lot of time at the weapon shop, to buy things or just to look, but he had no idea he had befriended someone there. It was the best news of the week.

“This is so cool! I’m Uzumaki Naruto. I hope we can be friends too!”

“I’m Tenten,” the girl said with a smile, shaking his outreach hand above the counter. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Naruto beamed.

“Was there something you wanted?” she asked next, going back to a more professional attitude. Naruto turned back to Sasuke – he was the one who had dragged them here after classes, claiming he absolutely needed to go, that it couldn’t wait.

Sasuke was still standing back and he looked… Naruto frowned. His face didn’t betray much, but Naruto could tell the difference between his general moodiness and when he was genuinely upset. That’s what he was seeing now in the tightness around his eyes and the tenseness of his shoulders, but he couldn’t figure out what had prompted it. It was a good enough day so far.

“We need new shurikens,” he said eventually, walking to the counter. “Ours are getting too dull.”

“You’ve tried sharpening them again?”

“Several times already. They’re too old now.”

Tenten also looked puzzled by the sudden sourness of his tone, but she didn’t comment on it as she went out back to fetch them new sets of shurikens. Naruto stared openly at Sasuke, trying to figure out why his mood had dropped suddenly, to no avail. He shrugged it off – Sasuke often got sad or angry for no apparent reasons. Naruto could only guess it had to do with unpleasant thoughts and memories popping up at random. He had to deal with those too, although he had long practiced tuning them out or aggressively burying them far away from the surface where they couldn’t dampen his cheery exterior.

“Here you go!” Tenten said, putting several boxes on the counter. “These are standards and those are a bit larger, I favor them personally. And those…”

She managed to draw Sasuke into debating the merits of the various options and some tension eased out of his body. Naruto tuned them out and opted to stroll around the shop, peering at the swords and katanas lining the walls on wooden hooks. Each one looked cooler than the other, even if Naruto didn’t have that much appreciation for those. He liked barehanded combat better, swords and the likes felt a bit like cheating to him. Besides, you had to carry them around, that had to be a pain, right?

Sasuke eventually made his choice – after a ridiculously long time, during which he and the girl drifted off to the merits of different throwing techniques – and he paid his selection while ignoring Naruto’s protests. He shoved one of the boxes in the blonde’s hands, and Naruto chose to let it go, knowing Sasuke wouldn’t budge on the matter, even if he knew Naruto didn’t like it when he paid for everything. Naruto could leave him this one, since weapons were his Thing – for their shared expenses, they were getting good enough at splitting it evenly. Tenten waved them goodbye as they exited the shop, going as far as throwing a “see you soon” at Sasuke that had Naruto grin from ear to ear.

“She seems cool,” he said as soon as they were back in the street. Sasuke shrugged but the tiniest smile was playing on his face. He was clutching the shuriken boxes in his hands, glancing at them from time to time. What a nerd.

“Do you see her often?”

“…I guess. She helps around the shop and she often has the shift right after the end of class so…”

“I can’t believe you made a friend all on your own! You could’ve told me.”

Sasuke shrugged again. He wasn’t smiling this time. Naruto almost asked – he couldn’t figure out what was bothering the other boy.

Instead, he chose another method that was sure to cheer him up.

“D’you wanna go test those out then?” he said, shaking the box under Sasuke’s nose.

Sasuke nodded eagerly, just as expected, and Naruto forgot about it.

.

“I’m home!”

“Welcome back,” Sasuke called from the kitchen table, seconds before Naruto barged in with the groceries. They usually went together, but they had realized earlier they were missing a few things for the recipe they wanted to try. Sasuke was deep into his history homework and Naruto was dying for a distraction, so he had offered to go to the shop on his own.

“Did you find everything?”

“Yep! I also bought some shampoo… and that weird cream you like to get on your hair.”

Sasuke ducked back into his scrolls, embarrassed. Naruto mocked him about the time he spent in the bathroom and on his hair, since he didn’t even bother to brush his own with his fingers. Sasuke had picked up the habit of using his mother’s products for his hair a long time ago, and he saw no reason to let it go, not even Naruto’s teasing.

“Oh, and I ran into Tenten!”

Sasuke’s brush froze above his paper. He cursed when a drop of ink landed on his last kanji, messing up his careful writing.

“Good,” he commented while trying to absorb the excess of ink, wishing for some reasons that Naruto wouldn’t expand on the encounter. It was misjudging the chatty boy though.

“She was running errands for her aunt. Except she’s not really her aunt? But she takes care of her and other girls from the Academy. They’re not her sisters though, but kind of? Since they grew up together and all…”

Sasuke knew she was an orphan and had adopted siblings, but not much more. He wasn’t good at small talk. He meant to ask, when he went to the shop, meant to ask how she was doing and the polite thing people asked about, but they always derailed about one knife or another.

“She’s not been working at the shop for long but she really likes it. She had to beg the weapon master for weeks before he agreed to take her in… Oh, she asked if you’d come next week ‘cause they’re receiving some new stuff!”

Naruto kept chattering away as he sorted through the groceries with practiced ease, puttering around the kitchen and Sasuke, who was making an effort not to cut through the noise.

It was no use though – after learning to decipher his monosyllabic answers, Naruto could even understand his silence now.

“Is there something wrong?” he asked, sitting in front of Sasuke. He kicked his legs under the table, never one to sit still.

“No.”

“Lie!”

“Tenten is _my_ friend.”

He sat back in his chair, throwing his brush on the side, knowing there was no escaping this conversation now. He didn’t want to have it. He didn’t even know why he was mad, how was he going to explain it to Naruto?

Naruto, brows furrowed in great puzzlement, was gaping at him.

“I… Okay?”

“It’s hard enough… Why do you… You don’t need to befriend her.”

Sasuke put his hands in his hair, frustrated. He wasn’t making sense and he wasn’t sure he agreed with what he was saying. He didn’t get his own feeling. He hated it.

“I wasn’t going to ignore her! I was just… being friendly.”

“I know that!”

That’s the problem, he didn’t say, but it was out there anyway.

“I don’t understand. I didn’t… I didn’t do anything wrong.”

His voice was wavering and Sasuke had to stop, he had to stop or he would make Naruto cry and that was the last thing he wanted. He didn’t know how to bring down his temper though, how to keep these feelings at bay.

“You’re always so…”

He didn’t have the words. Well, he had some, but Naruto was right, they weren’t wrong. And yet…

“I… I’m just like that.”

Sasuke could hear him getting defensive. Getting hurt. He _was_ like that, always friendly and open, always nice to everyone. It wasn’t that everyone liked him, far from it, but that made it even worse. If Naruto being who he was couldn’t win everyone over, then what chances did Sasuke had to…

“It… it was nice to see her, that’s all I’m saying…”

“I don’t want you to be friend with her.”

Sasuke’s eyes widened just as much as Naruto’s, like it had been said by someone else. It was absurd. It was absurd, but he couldn’t take it back.

“Wh-What?”

“It’s… you have the boys from our class and even some of the girls too so…”

It was wrong, because it’s not like Naruto had that many friends either. But he could, easy. He could charm any of them to his side.

They would all choose him.

“It hurts.”

Sasuke raised his head to meet Naruto’s gaze for the first time since he had sat down there. He wasn’t crying but his face was all scrunched up and tense, split between sadness and anger, and he was balancing between the two, not knowing which one should prevail. One of his hand was gripping and tugging at the front of his shirt.

“It hurts that you’d be mad at me for this.”

Sasuke knew he had to say something. To explain or apologize, to make him understand that there was something awful stirring in his chest when he looked at Naruto playing and laughing with the others from afar, that he wasn’t the only one gripped with senseless panic when the flat was empty when it shouldn’t have been. He had to say it, but he too was oscillating between anger and something much more painful, and as often he defaulted to anger because anger was the easiest to deal with.

Why couldn’t Naruto just get it?

In the end, Sasuke frowned and said nothing more.

Silence took over then. It was weird how it sounded different than all the times they had made and eat dinner in silence before. Every sound seemed louder, sounds that weren’t voices because they wouldn’t say a word.

After dinner, Sasuke went to his own room.

(It was the first time in months they were sleeping apart. Not that they got much sleep. Naruto tossed and turned and woke up a hundred times during the night. He didn’t get up to check that Sasuke was still here like he wanted to, but he stuck his ear to the wall so that he could catch the sound of his breath. Sasuke laid still on his back, staring at the ceiling and counting each breath in and out, each time Naruto moved, each ticking of the clock, and he wondered how he had been able to do that before, a lifetime ago in his empty house with his empty life. When he closed his eyes he got chased awake by the blood red of the Sharingan, and he gave up on sleeping altogether.)

.

“Hello Sas… Oh. Are you alright?” Tenten asked with concern as soon as she spotted him entering the weapon shop.

Sasuke hid further into his collar with a grumble that couldn’t be deciphered neither as a yes nor a no. Surely he didn’t look _that_ bad. He had just gotten zero sleep in the past few days, had been tensed and on edge and had not exchanged a single word with Naruto, that was it.

“’m fine.”

“Naruto’s not with you?”

Sasuke gritted his teeth.

“Go look for him if you want to see him.”

“Hey!”

He jumped, startled by the sudden cry. He looked up at her – she had her arms crossed, scowl firmly in place.

“I get that you’re in a bad mood, but if it’s because of me, you can just tell me, and if it’s not, you don’t get to take it out on me,” she stated. He blinked at her, caught off guard by the blunt rebuff.

“I-I’m sorry,” he stammered, ashamed. She was right to be angry – she had done nothing wrong.

The anger immediately dissipated from her face, replaced by a more gentle expression.

“It’s fine. Do you want to talk about it? Did you fight with Naruto?”

It was also what Iruka had asked him after class, and Shikamaru too at lunch, and even Sakura passing him by in the streets. Was it that obvious? It could have been something else. No?

“I guess.”

She looked at him expectantly, but it’s not like he even knew what they were fighting about exactly. He knew it was his fault – that much was obvious – but he had no idea how to fix it.

Maybe Tenten could help though. It was about her, in a way.

“Say, who do you like better, between Naruto and me?”

She spluttered, spitting all over her counter as red overtook her cheeks.

“Wh-What? You mean like… like-like? Because I don’t really…”

“No! No, I mean… as friends! In a friend way! Not… that.”

They were now both as flushed and embarrassed as each other. Sasuke wanted to disappear right there in a puff of smoke. What had possessed him to ask that?

“Oh, uh, okay. That’s… a weird question? I’ve only met Naruto a handful of times. I can’t really tell. And I don’t… see why that would matter.”

Of course she didn’t. Because it was stupid. He wasn’t making any sense. He didn’t know where he was going with this.

He still did.

“Like… who would you choose?”

She didn’t seem to like that question very much.

“I’d choose the one who wouldn’t ask me to choose.”

He felt he had angered her. He tried to back out.

“I’m not… asking.”

“I don’t understand what this is about. I don’t usually… huh… rank my friends?”

“So he _is_ your friend.”

She rolled her eyes.

“I don’t know. I guess? He’s yours so I suppose I’ll get to see more of him… Seriously, Sasuke, what’s this all about?”

She sounded annoyed. He looked down at his shoes. What _was_ this all about?

“Is it because we met the other day? Are you like… jealous?”

“I don’t… I don’t know. He told me you had sisters. I didn’t even know that.”

She raised a hand to play with a strand of hair, looking away from him.

“He’s… He asked. And he’s easy to talk to. I don’t much like to talk about myself. It’s boring. I don’t know, it just never came up. Does it matter that much?”

It occurred to Sasuke that maybe she thought he was blaming her for something.

“You don’t talk about yourself either,” she added, a bit defensive.

“I’d… rather not.”

“Well, me too, so…”

They didn’t know each other that well, in the end, or for that long. He liked her and liked to come here precisely because it felt like the rest of the world didn’t exist in the confine of the weapon shop. Their troubles and doubts and his many confusing feelings, just for a while he got to get away from it all. They never talked about anything other than blades and throwing techniques, and he liked it just this way. It wasn’t that far-fetched to assume she did too.

He didn’t know if he could confide in her. He wanted to, maybe, but what would she say? What would she think?

“If something’s bothering you, you can tell. I don’t know if I’ll be able to help, but I’ll try.”

“Why?” he blurted out, bringing confusing to her face.

“You said we were friends. Isn’t that what friends do?”

He wouldn’t know. But they could try.

“Maybe I am. Jealous. ‘Cause it’s… it’s so easy for him to make friends. He walked in here and it was done. While I…”

It had taken him months to go beyond a simple greeting. Tenten had been the one to speak to him first actually.

“Okay, I get it.”

“You do?”

“Kind of. It’s hard for me to make friends too.”

“It is? Why?”

Tenten was about the coolest girl he had met so far, it seemed weird that people wouldn’t want to befriend her. She laughed lightly, pleased.

“Thanks, but you know, what you and I talk about and all… most people would find it pretty dull.”

“Oh.”

If people were idiots, Sasuke and Tenten weren’t to blame.

“Besides, you’re wrong.”

“What?”

“About Naruto. He’d been here before. Not often but a few times, to buy the standardized weapons for the Academy. And I’d never heard his voice before the other day. In fact, I thought he was really shy, because he was always quiet, keeping his head down, going as fast as he could. So I was really surprised.”

Sasuke could have punched himself in the face.

It’s not like he didn’t know that. He seldom let Naruto shop without him, because he knew the toll it took on his friend. Naruto was very friendly. But people weren’t always friendly back.

“I see.”

“Why does it matter so much to you? Us being friends and me and Naruto being friends have nothing to do with each other.”

“I guess…”

Didn’t it though? He didn’t know. He was very confused. Didn’t it mean it would split and weaken, didn’t it mean they would have to make a choice? He just had doubts as to how many people one could befriend.

One could love.

The bell chimed in his back and two chunins in uniforms entered the shop. Tenten put her nice smile back on.

“Maybe we can talk about it again later. You’ll come back, right?”

He felt terrible for having made her doubt this.

“I will.”

.

Was it his fault? Was he being too greedy? After all, they always said that he couldn’t do it. That it was impossible, for him.

_“Look, it’s him! He’s always alone.”_

_“Who would want to befriend him?”_

They never said it to his face but they whispered so loudly, they had to know he would hear them.

_“Don’t talk to him. He’s bad news.”_

_“Don’t approach him.”_

It was different for Sasuke because Sasuke didn’t have anyone to warn him off anymore, to forbid him any contact with Naruto.

Maybe it was enough then? He had made one true friend. Maybe he didn’t need another one. He was lucky enough as it was. If he had to have only one, he would want them to be Sasuke.

But what if Sasuke didn’t want him anymore? Naruto would do anything, anything he wanted, anything he asked. So that he wouldn’t leave.

.

There was nothing indicating which apartment belonged to who, so Sasuke, once he’d managed to sneak inside the building behind a harassed chunin who didn’t even noticed him, had to go from door to door to decipher the names written under the doorbell. Some didn’t have a name at all and he got a bit desperate that he was going to have to _ask_ someone for indications, but then he found it, at the end of the corridor of the second floor.

Umino Iruka.

He stared at the door. It was just a door, plain and bland, painted an ugly green like the rest of the walls. It was as menacing to him as the doors to the afterlife. He had gone through all this trouble to find it, but he felt like he wasn’t going to be brave enough to knock.

“Hello, Sasuke. What are you doing here?”

Sasuke startled badly and jumped back, but he was too close to the wall and he hit his head with a dull thump. Tears prickled his eyes as he rubbed his skull, overcome with the urge to punch the wall very hard. He knew it wouldn’t help much, but he really wanted to.

“Are you alright? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you…”

Iruka rushed to check on Sasuke, who batted his hands away.

“I’m fine. Sorry.”

Iruka shrugged with a smile and went to unlock his door.

“Do you want to come in then?”

Sasuke followed him inside without a word.

The flat was small and sparsely furnished but well lived in all the same. Their latest writing tests were spread on the coffee table with three different mugs of half-drunk tea. Iruka gestured for Sasuke to sit at one of the counter’s high stools while he put his things away and started to make some tea.

“Did you need help with something, Sasuke? Is everything okay?”

Sasuke expected the man to be annoyed maybe that he had been ambushed like that, to want to dismiss him as fast as possible, but there was nothing but concern in his voice. Sasuke crossed his hands on the counter, stared at his fingers.

“You said… we could come. If we ever had troubles.”

“I did.”

Sasuke opened his mouth but found he didn’t know what to say next. Iruka took care of it for him.

“You and Naruto had a fight, right?”

Sasuke nodded wordlessly.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?”

He kind of didn’t, because he felt like he was at fault and he didn’t want Iruka to be mad at him, to think badly of him. Especially seeing… Iruka preferred Naruto, right? He was his favorite. Didn’t it mean he would side by him? Staying silent would defeat the purpose of his visit though.

He did his best to explain, even if it wasn’t that clear to him. He talked about Tenten and Naruto and even Kiba, how weird he felt when he sat on the bench at the park and watched the others play, how he wanted to be there even if he didn’t participate. How he didn’t like Naruto having fun without him, but how he had wanted to keep Tenten to himself still.

Iruka didn’t interrupt and he didn’t get mad either. When Sasuke was done and hoping he wouldn’t have to talk for the rest of the week, the man kept silent for a moment, and then he rested his elbow on the counter in front of Sasuke, so that they could look at each other properly.

“Sasuke… are you afraid Naruto is going to leave you behind?”

Sasuke jumped upright.

“What? Why do you say that? Did he tell you something?”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant!” Iruka said quickly, placating. “It just seems to me that you’re afraid you’re going to… split up. And you think that Naruto won’t be alone then, but that you will.”

Was it what he had been saying? He trusted Iruka’s interpretation on that.

“Well it’s true. Isn’t it?”

“I don’t think so, no. If it did end up that you and Naruto aren’t friends anymore – something I doubt will ever happen, just so you know – what makes you think he would take all the others with him? You’ve been hanging out with them too, right? Same goes for Tenten.”

“Yeah but… People would like Naruto better.”

“Do you wish they liked him less?”

“No!”

He didn’t want Naruto to be sad. He was making a poor job of it right now, but he really didn’t. And it was normal people liked him best anyway. He was nicer than Sasuke, brighter and warmer and all around a better friend and better company. Anyone in their right mind would like him best.

“Then why is it an issue?”

"They would choose him."

“Why would they?”

“I don’t know! If he asked them to!”

Iruka smiled gently.

“Sasuke, you know Naruto, don’t you? You know he would never do that.”

But that was the thing, wasn’t it?

“I don’t.”

“What?”

“I don’t… know that.”

He was always telling Naruto to stop doubting but he wasn’t any better himself. Iruka was staring, silently urging him to go on.

“You can never know. Not for sure.”

“That’s not true. There are people you can trust.”

“Are there?”

His temper was rising, panic and anguish translating into anger. Naruto called it the Anger Pipe. He said Sasuke had a lot of feelings but that he only had one way out of his body for them, and it was the Anger Pipe. That’s why he was always angry about everything.

“Where is this coming from, Sasuke?” Iruka said calmly, not unsettled in the slightest. His voice, his whole presence wee soothing, gentle. Sasuke wanted to be convinced he wished him no harm. How could he though?

He was panicking, he knew it. He was wringing his hands together, hard, and his chest was heaving with shortened breath. His thoughts were spiraling down, out of his control, because he wanted to, he did, but how could he, how, when, when…

“Sasuke.”

A big hand landed on his head, physically slamming him down back to earth. Iruka looked concern, but encouraging too, confident. Sasuke drew from it as much as he could. Tears wouldn’t fall, even if his eyes were stinging and he did feel like crying. Out of anger and frustration, because he didn’t want to be like that, he didn’t want to feel this way, he wanted it all to be gone and he hated _him_ for this because it was his fault, it was his fault he was stuck as it was now.

“I thought… I thought I knew. I never even doubted it. Had I been asked, I would… I would have been so sure but…”

He closed his eyes and bit his lips hard, inhaled deeply.

“My… My brother didn’t love me. I was so sure… but he didn’t.”

What if he had doubted then? Wouldn’t he have heard the exact same things Iruka was saying, the same thing he was trying to tell himself? _“You know him. He would never do that.”_

But he had. He had.

Iruka had nothing to say to that. The hand in his hair slid to the side as the man raised the other, and he cradled Sasuke’s head in his both his palms, bringing it to his own head. He rested his forehead in Sasuke’s hair and Sasuke choked up, but he didn’t cry. He grabbed Iruka’s wrists and held on for dear life, teeth gritting painfully.

“You can never know for sure,” Iruka admitted after a while. “It’s a bet we all do. The trust we put in each other… It’s a wish, a hope, that it won’t be betrayed, that the other won’t let you down. You can’t know for sure. You have to have faith.”

It was so stupid because he did know. Naruto wouldn’t ever do something like that to him. When Naruto talked about love, Sasuke believed him, he did. But he couldn’t help it, couldn’t help the voice in his head that told him to be wary, to be careful, because what if it happened again?

Sasuke would surely die.

“I’m sick of feeling this way,” he said, knowing full well there was nothing Iruka or anyone could do about it. He had refused to talk with anyone, with the adults that claimed it would help, because he didn’t see how he could ever heal from this. It had happened, and now he was scarred, and he hated people, and he wanted to die, or to kill his brother, or both, and how could he ever feel better?

“You probably won’t believe me,” Iruka said into his hair, “but as time passed, you will feel better. You will learn to live with this. But you need to talk about it for it to happen. People need to know you feel this way, so they can help you.”

“I don’t need no one’s help,” he mumbled, aware it wasn’t true.

“There’s no shame in leaning on other people. We all need each other. That’s why no one wants to live alone.”

Sasuke nodded. He knew that. He knew that as bad as he felt right now, it could be a hundred time worse. He could be all on his own.

There were times when he thought it would still be for the best. He didn’t say that though.

They straightened up, and Sasuke was once again baffled by how utterly nice that man was with him, with them. He had no reason to feel so strongly for them, no reason to be concerned over their fate, and yet here they were.

“As for your fight… It’s okay, if there are things you don’t want to share with Naruto. It’s normal even, as it is normal if there are things he doesn’t want to share with you. It doesn’t make your relationship any weaker, it doesn’t mean you're pulling away. But it’s unfair to ask him to be different. That’s not what you want, right?”

Sasuke shook his head. He liked Naruto how he was. If Naruto was different, maybe things wouldn’t have happened this way, maybe they wouldn’t have become friends.

“It’s also thanks to you that he could be more open like this. You have to know you helped him, as much as he helped you. You have to know… You know it’s not easy for him either.”

They stared at each other for a moment. Iruka was frowning, displeased with something.

“I know. Do you…” Sasuke bit his lips. He wasn’t sure he wanted to ask – wasn’t sure he wanted to know. “Do you know why? Why it’s like this. With him.”

It was anger for sure that crossed Iruka’s face.

“I do.”

“Can you tell me?”

“I’m sorry Sasuke. I can’t.”

It figured.

“All I can tell you is that… I think, well, I hope, that it wouldn’t change anything for you, if you knew.”

“Like for you?”

Iruka looked sideway briefly and Sasuke was reminded that once, when they were younger, Iruka wasn’t so nice to Naruto either. He was more like the other teachers, dismissive and impatient with him, less tolerant than with the others.

“I try my best,” Iruka answered simply.

Sasuke believed him.

The doorbell rung, cutting the conversation. It wasn’t so bad – Sasuke needed to go lie down for ten years to get over this day.

He wasn’t going to though, because Iruka opened the door, and it was Naruto on the other side.

“I was just wondering if Sasuke was here maybe?”

“He is. Do you want to come in?”

“No, no, I… just wanted to know where he was, I’ll go now.”

“Wait!” Sasuke shouted, jumping down from his stool. “Wait. I’m going home with you.”

A little dumbstruck, Naruto nodded without protesting. Sasuke turned to Iruka.

“Thank you, sensei.”

“You’re welcome, Sasuke. I hope you’ll figure things out. I’ll see you boys in class tomorrow.”

They were silent in the streets on their way home but Naruto was vibrating out of his own skin, overflowing with things he wanted to say but couldn’t, not until they were safe behind their door. Sasuke was hyperaware of the gap between them, a distance so small and yet impossible to cross.

Naruto lasted about four seconds after they had closed the front door.

“I’ll leave you Iruka too, if you want to.”

Sasuke took a moment, but that sentence still didn’t make sense to him.

“What?”

“You can have him. And Tenten too. You can have any of them. I don’t care. So please, please Sasuke. Don’t leave. Don’t leave me alone.”

Nope, still didn’t make sense.

“I don’t… We’re not… splitting them between us. What…”

“You said you didn’t want us to have the same friends. You choose. I don’t care, I don’t.”

Naruto was working himself up as he often did, panicking even though Sasuke hadn’t said a thing. How were they having this conversation? How had Naruto come to that conclusion, what had he been thinking, in that dumb brain of his, for the past days, that he thought…

“You can’t say that.”

“What? I just…”

“No, no, Naruto, listen to me. You can’t say things like that. It’s not right.”

Sasuke knew he had to speak quickly, lest Naruto misunderstood everything again. It was hard though. His words were jumbling together, refusing to cooperate. As a last resort, he raised two fingers in front of Naruto’s face.

It was a signal they had designed, for when Sasuke needed time to focus. It told Naruto that he had to wait him out, that it was still Sasuke’s turn to speak, even if he wasn’t saying anything. Without it, Naruto could talk and talk and get lost in it, and Sasuke would be paralyzed, unable to bounce fast enough between ideas, to follow the wild thread of Naruto’s speech.

So, two fingers up, and Naruto would take a breath, and they would both calm down, and Sasuke would figure out what to say.

Eventually.

“Alright,” he began, sorting through words and thoughts, ordering them properly. “You were right to be mad at me. For what I say. I was the one who was wrong.”

Naruto inhaled, but Sasuke’s fingers were still up and he refrained from interrupting. Sasuke knew he couldn’t abuse of it, if he didn’t want Naruto to implode. He had to say his piece quickly.

“I don’t mind you having friends. Even more friend than me. I don’t really care about that. I’m just… I’m scared that… that you’ll like them more and that… in the end you won’t want me. Anymore. And I know we have to talk about it because it’s not true, but first…”

It was an issue he had wanted to touch upon before, and he regretted not having done so sooner, because now they were stuck having too many problems to sort through.

“Okay, listen. It’s alright if… if you’re mad at me. And if I’m mad at you. It doesn’t last so it’s alright. It doesn’t mean… that I’m going to leave or anything like that. You have to stop thinking that. And you can’t, you can’t say things like this. You can’t say I just get what I want and you get nothing. It can never work like that. Do you understand?”

He put his hand down.

“Don’t you want to get what you want?” Naruto asked.

“And what about you?”

“Not if you don’t like it.”

“Well it’s the same for me. It’s… It’s a compromise.”

He never missed when Naruto had heard a word he didn’t get. At the beginning he would deny it, but these days, he just asked.

"What's a compromise?"

“It’s when… we both want something different. But instead you get what you want and I get nothing, or I get what I want and you get nothing, we both get… half each. Or I get what I want this time, but next time it’s you. So that it’s fair.”

“Okay. Okay, I get it.”

“So you can’t say I get everything, just to make me happy. It doesn’t make me happy, if it makes you sad. You don’t want me to have all the friends. You don’t want that. You’d feel terrible.”

Naruto looked away guiltily.

“Alright. I’m sorry though. I didn’t mean to steal Tenten from you. I swear.”

“It’s not that…”

“No, I know but I mean I… I get it. Kind of. I get being jealous of that. I used to… to really want that and…”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I said that. It wasn’t true and I’m sorry.”

“You know it’s… it’s thanks to you.”

“What?”

“If I… I hung out with the others y’know but they weren’t really… Like their parents didn’t like me and we didn’t… but then, then we became friends y’know. And I figured, I figured if you would be friend with me then… Then maybe they were wrong. Maybe I could get friends of my own after all.”

Somehow Sasuke knew what Naruto was going to say next.

“Maybe that meant I wasn’t… I-I wasn’t un-unlovable. Like they said.”

Naruto choked up on a sob, and here were the tears. Sasuke couldn’t deny he felt overwhelmed himself. He just didn’t get why they had to go through this, time and time again, why it had to be so tough. He put his hands on Naruto’s shoulders, shook him a little to get him to focus.

“They were wrong.”

It felt like the tide was receding, finally, like they had managed to calm things down a little. They took the time to take their shoes off, to pad into the living room instead of staying in the entryway. Sasuke made tea – it was almost a ritual at that point.

“I would though, y’know,” Naruto said after his first sip.

“What?”

“I would give it up. If it meant we stay together. You… You’re not like the others. You’re special. I’d chose you. Every time.”

It was nice to hear, soothing, and at the same time Sasuke wasn’t sure he liked that.

“If you don’t doubt,” he said, “I won’t doubt either.”

Naruto raised an eyebrow, puzzled.

“I want to make it a rule. You’re not allowed to think that I’m going to be so mad I’ll leave. I’m not going anywhere, so don’t doubt, Naruto. Just don’t. Every time you get into that stupid head of yours that you’re going to anger me enough that I’ll disappear or whatever, you’ll have to remember that rule, alright?”

He didn’t want Naruto to live with that fear. He didn’t want to scare him every time he was angry.

“Alright. Alright, but it’s the same for you. No matter how many people I befriend, how many I love, it doesn’t change anything about this. ‘Cause you’re special. You’re like my… It’s special. What we have.”

Naruto had bit back the word at the last moment. Sasuke wondered what he meant to say.

“Deal.”

He snatched the Rule scroll from its shelves, along with the brush and ink that lived right by it for that exact purpose. The number kept growing. He scribbled a hasty 27 at the bottom and wrote “No doubting about us” behind it in quick, careful stroke. It was much more legible and pretty than the first few lines of their messy handwriting.

It was silly, maybe, to think they could command their own feelings like that. Except they sort of could. It had worked in the past, for both of them. What was written didn’t have to be said again. They could look at the list and recall, they could have faith in this.

Looking up from the paper, he saw Naruto beaming at him.

“Deal.”

That night when Naruto asked if Sasuke wanted to sleep in his room, Sasuke mumbled a “just for tonight”, because they had to get used to sleeping apart anyway. But he was exhausted and one more night wouldn't hurt. Sasuke unrolled the futon next to Naruto's bed and, lulled by the other boy’s calming breath, finally, he slept.

.

“I’m going to the weapon shop.”

For some reasons Sasuke seemed worried about it, as he made the announcement while putting on his shoes.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Naruto asked. Sasuke didn’t answer right away, taking the time to adjust his clothes and grab his wallet. He was still facing away when he spoke.

“I’d rather… go alone. Tenten said they were receiving their new katanas today and…”

“That’s fine,” Naruto cut in. “I’ll go to Kiba’s to pet his dogs!”

Sasuke looked back, to analyze and assess, to find out in Naruto’s expression if he was being sincere or not. He was.

“Okay. Dinner here though?”

“’Course!”

They smiled at each other, and Sasuke left, but Naruto wasn’t so worried.

He would be back. Always.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Setting up incoming angst :p
> 
> Pfiou. Well that was tough. It makes me very anxious to think about unhealthy codependency so I felt the urge to have them start to address that kind of issues. They're not done with those pesky little feelings but well. It occurred to me only mildly through this that Sasuke had to have insane trust issues after what Itachi did. They deal in very healthy ways here, when you think about it. Jealousy and possessiveness between friends is not joke... But well, I don't mean to have them struggle that much either. 
> 
> I feel like Tenten would need to be zero bullshit to handle team 10... So she's equipped to handle Sasuke as well ^^ Giving Sasuke friends is my new thing and I like them being weapon nerds together. Iruka taking care of them is also my thing. I hope you enjoyed this, let me know, come say hi on [tumblr](http://inrainprose.tumblr.com),  
> see you!


	4. Shikamaru

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I woke up yesterday and thought "huh, I should get started on that next chapter...". It was ready by the end of the day x) but then I fell asleep on my computer. I think I published it in my dreams because I was very confused this morning as to why it wasn't up. Sleep is important people.
> 
> Shikamaru is one of my favorites but I'll try not to be too biased toward him x) Rewatching some Naruto Shippuden (namely some of their childhood, both the real ones, filler ones and the ones we saw in their infinite tsukuyomi) I'm always surprised how... mean they're all portrayed, actually? Like I've always attributed Sasuke's asshole behavior to his past and him shutting himself off, but in Naruto's dream his family is still there and he's still an asshole so like... Is it really what we're supposed to get out of his character? Is it his top character trait? It's kind of the same with Shikamaru who's pretty mean spirited at times. I realize that we write them much nicer in the fandmom x) And it's better like this in my opinion.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

Naruto couldn’t tear his eyes away.

It was a good thing he was walking the streets with Kiba, Shikamaru and Choji, who could steer him away from obstacles as they went, because he was too engrossed in the paper he was clutching in his hands, and he would have surely cracked his head open on a lamppost without their guidance.

He just couldn’t believe it. He felt like if he looked away it would be gone, and he really didn’t want that to happen. Better to keep an eye on it. Or both eyes.

“Are you gonna get over it any time soon?” Kiba snarled by his sides, annoyed. Naruto raised his head just enough to stick his tongue out at him before going back to his paper. Kiba huffed, Akamaru barked at him.

“What’s so crazy about a stupid grade anyway…” the boy mumbled. This time Naruto didn’t even bother reacting. Kiba wouldn’t understand.

Kiba had pretty bad grades, and had shown to be bothered by it in the past, but mostly because other kids would use it to call him stupid or things like that. He wasn’t stupid though, he just didn’t like to study and he didn’t like tests, like Naruto. He had decent grades when he actually worked for it – usually when Shino had tricked him into a study session at his house. They didn’t get along that well but their parents were close, so they had known each other forever.

Kiba knew that he could get better grades if he actually worked for it, that’s why it didn’t affect him all that much. But Naruto had never had such certitude.

Until today.

Because today, they had gotten back their mid-semester tests from Iruka-sensei on ninjutsu theory, the one that went back on everything they had studied since the beginning of the term. The others were holding on their test casually, and would probably get rid of it or stuff it in a pile with the rest as soon as they were home, after having shown it to their parents maybe, but Naruto would probably frame his.

Or more specifically, frame the mark at the top right corner, written with a thick red pen.

It said 53/100.

53\. Out of 100. It was the first time Naruto scored above average at one of those tests. It was the first time he had managed to answer so many questions, and that so many of his answers were actually right.

It was the first time he had been able to read all the questions, for a start. It was an advice from Sakura – she had given it casually one day, when he was struggling on the first part of an exercise during class. She had said it was a good idea to read all the questions beforehand, so that he could focus on the ones he thought he could answer, instead of wasting time on a harder one and realize too late he could have filled out others. Before, it would have been a useless piece of advice, because if he read the entire test he wouldn’t have had any time left to answer it.

But now, he could read it all. It took him too long and meant there was no way he could write out all the answers in time even if he knew them, but at least that way he had been able to complete the easy ones first. Writing took him way too long too. He had been frustrated at the end of the allotted time because there was more he knew, more he could have answered, but there just wasn’t enough time for him.

It didn’t matter now. He would do better next time. He _could_ do better. This right there was proof of that. He wasn’t a hopeless case. He could actually raise his grade.

He couldn’t wait to get home and show it to Sasuke.

Sasuke’s test, also clutched in his hands, sported a 100/100, as always. Naruto didn’t even think to be bitter or jealous about it. It was thanks to Sasuke he had that 53 to his name now. It was thanks to Sasuke, who had told him that his “illiteracy” – he had been the one to teach him the word – was just something they had to fix, that it wasn’t his fault in any way, and that Sage helped him he _would_ raise Naruto’s grades. Sasuke had taken it as a challenge and Naruto had thought at first that he just wanted to see if he could do it, if he was so good he could teach something to the class dead last.

But the first time it had actually paid off, the first time they had seen a significant leap in his results…

Sasuke had looked so _proud._ So happy for something so small and stupid.

“See?” he’d said. “I told you it could be done.”

And Sasuke was all about things that could be done.

He wasn’t at school today because Naruto had forced him to stay in bed, after he’d puked all night from something bad they had eaten at dinner. He’d been incredibly bitter about Naruto being only mildly inconvenienced while his own guts tried to escape his body, but Naruto, after years of eating questionable food, had a much sturdier stomach. He’d looked so awful that morning, Naruto had threatened to lock him in his room if he tried to get up to go to school. The threat had proven useless – Sasuke hadn’t been able to even get out of bed.

This was sure to lift his spirit. First, because he would be comforted in his top-of-the-class position – not that it was much of a surprise. And second, because Naruto was bringing the hard evidence that his help _worked,_ that Naruto wasn’t a lost cause, that all those frustrating hours of walking him through reading, writing and then actually studying had paid off.

Naruto wasn’t stupid. Wasn’t dumb and slow and unteachable. He could improve.

Really, he couldn’t be blamed for staring at the paper.

For all his grumbling and complaining, Kiba said nothing about his 53, about how it wasn’t that good, wasn’t worthy of any praise. He could be more considerate than his brash attitude let on. His own test read 65, and he seemed content with that.

“What about you guys?” Kiba asked, giving up on prying Naruto’s attention away from his academic accomplishment. Naruto still tore his eyes away to see Choji wave his paper around, the 76/100 clearly visible at the top.

“Huh, not bad!” Kiba said, a hint of jealousy in his voice. “To think I thought you’d stick with me at the bottom of the list…”

It was said without much conviction though. Choji never got excellent grades, but never bad ones either. He was very constant in his studying and progression.

“And you?”

Shikamaru rolled his eyes, annoyed already with the conversation despite taking no part in it. He made a weak attempt at dodging the question, but he knew better than to engage in a game of will with Kiba.

He raised his own paper for them to look at and really, Naruto didn’t even know why Kiba was asking. It’s not like they didn’t know exactly what they would see.

His grade was 80/100 and for as long as Naruto could remember, Shikamaru had always gotten that exact same score.

“Seriously man, I don’t get you,” Kiba exclaimed dramatically. “We all know you’re like, top smart. You could score 110 on all of those things easy. What’s wrong with you?”

Shikamaru shrugged, never one to give out straight answers easily. No wonder why he and Kiba clashed so often.

“Naruto!”

The blonde raised his head, surprised at being addressed. He thought Kiba had given up on him.

“What?”

“You’re good at getting people right? How do you explain this?”

He pointed a thumb at “this”, meaning Shikamaru, who rolled his eyes again.

“I’m… good at that?” Naruto asked, confused as to why Kiba thought he had secret intel on Shikamaru’s way of working.

“Yeah,” Kiba said, mildly exasperated. His tone suggested it was knowledge common enough that Naruto should have been aware of it.

“You broke through Sasuke,” Shikamaru piped up as an explanation that wasn’t much of one.

“He’s not that hard to understand,” Naruto defended. Shikamaru disagreed.

“He is. You’re that good.”

Was that a compliment? Naruto wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure what they were talking about exactly.

“So, Naruto, enlighten me. How is it possible to be so lazy that you don’t bother doing the bare minimum, when that bare minimum would be enough to get you out of school or something.”

Kiba probably didn’t realize how praiseful he was being of Shikamaru’s abilities, but then again, it was common knowledge among them. Naruto felt like maybe some adults, some of the teachers and staff weren’t aware of it, because Shikamaru worked hard on that. He didn’t bother pretending around the other kids though. It’s not from them he was hiding.

“He doesn’t score low because he’s lazy.”

“What? You’re telling me he’s not lazy? Shikamaru?”

“That’s not what I said! He is, I guess. But it has nothing to do with his grades.”

Naruto cast an uncertain look at Shikamaru. Was he okay with being discussed like this? The other boy avoided his gaze, a look of careful disinterest hiding what he was thinking. Why did they think Naruto was good at this? Right now he couldn’t tell what Shikamaru was feeling.

As a last resort, he turned to Choji, who, much like Naruto for Sasuke, was always a good alternative to get some insight on Shikamaru. The other boy shrugged, but didn’t look otherwise alarmed, meaning the topic was safe enough to discuss.

"He always gets an 80. Like, always. There’s nothing lazy about that.”

“Why?  He could get more.”

“Or less. Aiming for a 100 is easy disappointed. You just try to get everything right. Or aiming for a zero, ‘cause you just have to get everything wrong. But aiming for an 80…”

Naruto couldn’t help but think that it was Shikamaru’s own way of honing his skills and maybe even showing off a little without actually climbing the rankings. The point system of their tests wasn’t always obvious, with questions weighing less or more without it being stated in any way. But Shikamaru always got an 80, without fail, on every subject, in every class. There was nothing easy about that.

It wasn’t subtle either, but it still worked so that he had an average grade of 80/100. It was pretty good, but it was at least five ranks away from the top. Good enough that the teachers didn’t feel like calling him out on it or urging him to do better, not good enough that it drew unwanted attention on him.

“That makes even less sense,” Kiba complained, frustrated. “Why not aim for the top?”

“I have no interest in graduating early,” Shikamaru answered, done with the passive silence. “Why would I want to leave the Academy? It’s the easiest we’ll ever get it. Being a genin sounds like a pain.”

"You're unbelievable. Who picks sitting through boring classes all day over training and going out on missions?"

Shikamaru shrugged again, as if to say “well guess _I_ do”, angering Kiba even more. It’s not like Kiba could give lessons about giving it his best since he didn’t put much efforts into his tests either, but Shikamaru wasn’t the same as the rest of them. He wasn’t even the same as Sasuke. Sasuke was smart, smarter than most and a very good student. But Shikamaru… Naruto couldn’t pretend to understand how his brain worked, but he knew that he was on a whole other level. There was a reason why they always made him team leader when they played Ninjas versus Samurais. More than a good memory or a good understanding of school stuff, he could _see,_ see ahead, see the bigger picture, see everything at once. He could think of dozens of things at the same time.

He was just the smartest. Naruto could understand why Kiba was so puzzled by his actions. He could also understand Shikamaru, he thought.

“I wouldn’t want to graduate early,” he said to distract Kiba from his ranting. The look his friends cast on him made him blush lightly in embarrassment.

“Not that I could,” he mumbled quickly before they had a chance to say it. “But even if I could, I wouldn’t.”

“Why the hell not? You hate school,” Kiba remarked, almost vexed that Naruto could speak of the possibility of staying at school if he could not. Naruto didn’t tell him that he didn’t hate school per se, or like, he didn’t hate the concept, just his personal experience of it. He was sure it could be nice. Somehow.

“If you graduate early, you’re on your own. You get to join a team from the previous class that you don’t know. You leave your friends behind.”

It was a legitimate concern for him because Sasuke with his perfect grades, perfect record and perfect combat skills could very well be offered to become a genin a year early. It was another reason why Naruto had to get better. So that Sasuke wouldn't get too far ahead. Wouldn’t get out of reach.

Silence had fallen over their little group. Kiba was staring at him while Shikamaru looked away. Choji was smiling softly, content.

“W-What?” he said, defensive. Kiba didn’t answer, but he turned to stare at Shikamaru, gears turning in his brain as he mulled over Naruto’s words. Truth be told, it was only speculations on Naruto’s part, born of his own thoughts on the matter. But he had often heard it said that Shikamaru and Choji were “such good friends”, and he couldn’t help but think that it was a cheap way of putting it. The two were always together, always picked each other’s company over anyone else’s, and they had a level of understanding of the other that wasn’t base friendship, not in Naruto’s eyes anyway.

He liked to compare it to what he shared with Sasuke.

They were destined to be on the same team because of their family name, and they had to be happy with that path. Shikamaru wouldn’t go on without Choji. Naruto was pretty sure of that.

“You really are good at this,” Kiba mumbled under his breath.

.

After the fact, Naruto always felt bad about it. Especially when he was faced with a wrathful Iruka who was choking on his own indignation, while Kiba and Naruto looked down both to avoid his gaze and to try to stifle a sheepish smile or worse, a full-blown laugh.

He felt bad because he didn’t mean to make Iruka’s life harder than it was. He didn’t want him to be disappointed in Naruto or to resent him. But those concerns always came after. At the time, when he was spray-painting a giant dog on the wall circling the Academy, he didn’t think about that at all.

“What did I do to get such troublesome students?” Iruka sighed dramatically, finally coming down from his anger. Naruto wasn’t worried because he could tell when Iruka was exasperated, desperate and annoyed, but not actually angry in the way he was when he caught some kids bullying another or stealing their things.

“Sorry, sensei,” they chorused, not sorry in the slightest. Kiba had proven a very good drawer, and Naruto was bold with colors – their collaboration was a work of art.

It wasn’t meant to last though.

“You’ll be sorry alright, when you’ll be scrubbing the wall clean tomorrow.”

Kiba groaned, but Naruto froze, panicked.

“Please, sensei… does it have to be tomorrow?”

“Do you really think you have the luxury to bargain with me right now? Yes, tomorrow!”

“Can’t it be the next day? I’ll be here I swear!”

“The next day a delegation is coming from the capital. You should have thought beforehand about the consequences of your actions, Naruto.”

He wanted to protest, but he refrained. Iruka was right, and usually he wouldn’t mind cleaning up all that much – it was part of the game, when they got caught. He’d thought they could leave it up until the weekend though – it really was a nice painting. Iruka would have said yes, he was sure, in other circumstances. But of course it couldn’t be seen by important people…

“What were you supposed to do tomorrow?” Iruka asked gently. Maybe if Naruto told him, he would relent, but that’s wouldn’t be fair to Kiba if he had to do it on his own, or to Iruka if he got into trouble because he had not had the wall cleaned up. Naruto buried his hands in his pockets and ducked his head.

“Nothing.”

“Naruto…”

“It’s nothing!”

Kiba was quiet on their way out, obviously dying to ask but refraining, maybe knowing Naruto wouldn’t give him an answer.

“You’ll be here tomorrow then?” he asked, unsure. Naruto assured him he would.

He got home dragging his feet. Sasuke would say nothing, he knew. He would say it was alright and he wouldn’t even be lying. If anything, he would probably find it better this way, since he wanted to prove to himself that he was fine with it, that the day would pass and be okay. And maybe it would, but maybe it wouldn’t, and now Naruto wouldn’t be there with him to find out.

The next day, he rolled out of bed, cursing because they didn’t have class and he could have slept longer if it wasn’t for cleaning duty. Sasuke assured him once again, traces of annoyance in his voice, that he would be fine, that Naruto had to clean up his mess, and not to worry so much about him. Naruto still wasn’t happy.

Engrossed in his thoughts as he walked to the Academy, he didn’t notice Shikamaru in time. The boy was wandering the streets nose up as often, and they collided painfully.

“Sorry, sorry,” Naruto said, rubbing his scrapped hands.

“What are you doing out so early?”

“Clean up duty,” Naruto admitted. “What about you?” He would have thought Shikamaru wouldn’t lose any opportunity to sleep.

“Errand for my mom,” he said in a dramatic sigh, conveying the tragedy of that situation. “Or I wouldn’t be awake.”

Naruto could sympathize.

He was about to walk away, when he was struck with an idea.

“Say, Shikamaru… what are you doing today?”

.

It was so frustrating.

Sasuke had been so sure it would all be fine. When Naruto had come back home looking like a kicked puppy and said that he wouldn’t spend the day with him, Sasuke had been glad. It was better that way. He was better now. It should have been fine.

It was so frustrating, that it still wasn’t.

The day was nothing special, and not for the first time he wished that time didn’t exist, time and dates and birthdays, that the days just passed one after the other without ever repeating themselves. It was so arbitrary, it was absurd. Why did it have to matter so much, what day it was?

He was almost tempted to go to the Academy and give Kiba and Naruto a hand, just so that he wouldn’t be alone in the quiet apartment, so that he could escape himself. But at the same time he didn’t have the strength to go out in the world. And he still wanted to convince himself that he was fine. He used to be good at handling everything alone. It angered him, how weak he was now in front of his grief, but he had come to term with the burden of those feelintgs, and he wasn't interested in being desensitized from his pain. Iruka had told him that it wasn’t a good thing not to feel anything at all, despite how tempting it was. He said that if people felt love and happiness, they had to feel sadness and anger too, that it was all or nothing. And Sasuke didn’t want nothing. He couldn’t do it anyway.

He had loved his family, so now he was sad. If he wasn’t sad, it meant he didn’t love them, and that wasn’t true.

He didn’t want to be mad at Naruto though. Naruto was free to do his stupid pranks with Kiba and get caught and punished. He wasn’t supposed to be there constantly to hold Sasuke together, that wouldn’t be fair. Sasuke could cope without him.

He hated himself for still wishing he was here.

He needed these feelings, for fuel. Without love and anger, how would he go after his former brother? Even if it sure would make life easier. And less painful.

Sasuke had been scrubbing at the bathroom for the better part of the morning, the only way he had found to turn his restless energy in something productive, when the doorbell rang.

There were very few people it could be and Sasuke wanted to see none of them. Iruka would see that something was wrong in an instant and would ask what the problem was. Sasuke didn’t want to tell him. The Hokage… he didn’t know, but he didn’t like the old man coming to their flat, especially if he was on his own. The man was intimidating and hard to read, and Sasuke still couldn’t help but feel threatened by his presence.

But it wasn’t Iruka or the Hokage behind the door.

It was Shikamaru.

He looked a little uncomfortable behind his usual bored façade. Sasuke was too surprised to close the door back on his face. The other boy had a large wooden box under his arm that caught Sasuke’s attention despite himself. He knew what it was.

“Hello.”

“Naruto told me to come spend the day with you.”

Sasuke huffed. Of course he had. Sasuke should have seen it coming.

“And you said yes?” he said, skeptical, almost accusing. It’s not like they were really friends. They hung out together by proxy, through Naruto, but Sasuke still had a hard time carrying a conversation with anyone but the blonde, and Shikamaru had never sought him out. He wasn’t much of a talker either – or a socializer.

The hand that wasn’t holding the box came to rub at the nape of his neck, embarrassment more obvious in his elusive gaze and stiff posture.

“It’s not so easy to tell him no,” he grumbled, annoyed but helpless to do anything about it.

That made Sasuke relax a little for some reasons. After all, he was well acquainted himself with that kind of frustration.

“It’s alright if you don’t want to,” Shikamaru went on. “He said maybe you wouldn’t. But I promised I’d check on you anyway. I brought a shogi game. Just in case.”

He waved the wooden box under Sasuke’s nose for emphasis.

Sasuke would have said no, without the box. Had Naruto suggested it to Shikamaru? Or had the boy just grabbed the first thing he could think of to fill the long hours of a lazy day? Sasuke thought he remembered Shikamaru being fond of the game.

Sasuke was too. In another life.

“…Come in,” he said, somewhat reluctantly. He stood in the way for a moment though, long enough to make it slightly awkward, as they sized each other up from each side of the doorframe, before he stepped in, the other boy in tow.

It was reassuring in some way that Shikamaru was as uncomfortable as he was, that he didn’t really want to be there either. He trusted that Naruto had said nothing as to why, exactly, Sasuke needed company – which made the fact that he had still convinced Shikamaru to go along with it even more impressive.

“Do you know how to play?” Shikamaru asked, setting the game on the kitchen table. Sasuke made some tea, and when he brought it to the table, the pieces were in their familiar position, ready to move.

“Yes.”

“Okay then.”

.

They didn’t stop for lunch. Sasuke didn’t offer and Shikamaru didn’t ask. They played a game, and then another, and another. Shikamaru won all of them, but it didn’t really matter. They were good games, long and deliberate.

They didn’t share a word.

The spell was broken only when Shikamaru, ending another game with the definitive clack of the piece against the board, sat back into his chair with a groan.

“I need to move.”

Sasuke was beginning to feel a bit stiff himself. They got up, stretched a little. Shikamaru went to the bathroom. Sasuke made some more tea.

“You’re not bad,” Shikamaru said when he returned. It could be a conversation opener, or just a dead end observation. It was entirely up to Sasuke.

He found that his mind was clear of the fog that had clouded it at the beginning of the day. His thoughts were in order, he felt calm and steady, the concentration and intensity of the game carrying on even now it was over. He got some biscuits and vegetable cuts for them to share in lieu of a proper meal and went back to the table, where Shikamaru was setting the board for another game.

It was up to him.

“We played a lot in my family. In a tournament form, an entire day at times. I always lost, but it was fine.”

It felt so foreign to say that aloud, to share that small piece of information, that memory with someone else, with someone that wasn’t Naruto nonetheless.

“I play with my father, and that’s about it. Not much people are interested, and if they are, they tire of losing quickly.”

Sasuke heard no arrogance behind the words. Shikamaru was simply stating a fact – Sasuke could infer that not many people would be able to beat him.

He wondered if his mother could have. Or his father.

Sasuke had never won against either of them, or against… He had never won a game. He had still put up a good fight, better and longer as the years passed.

“It was my father’s birthday today,” he blurted out without much preamble. Shikamaru’s hand faltered slightly, surprised, but he didn’t otherwise react. When the board was set though, he looked at Sasuke dead in the eye, and without displaying much more expression than he had all day, he talked. Just a few words, steady and strong, meaningful in that strange, casual way of his, where he looked disinterested and was anything but.

“It comes very late, but I am sorry for your loss.”

Sasuke could feel that he wouldn’t say much more. He wouldn’t ask, wouldn’t pry. Sasuke was pretty sure it wasn’t that he was considerate as much as that he didn’t really care, and didn’t want to bother with the emotional aspect such questions would bring.

“Thank you,” he said in a relieved breathe, and it was as much for the boy’s words as for his indifference. Shikamaru nodded and moved his first piece. Silence fell back on the apartment.

.

Naruto ran all the way back home.

He figured that if Sasuke felt really, really bad, or was really, really angry at him, he would have come find him at the Academy. He hadn’t, and Naruto wanted to see it as a good sign. Still, he ran, as the sun was setting on the village. The air was still warm and the streets busy – he earned himself a few scolds and angry shouts, but he paid them no mind.

Shikamaru was still there when he arrived.

Both boys startled as Naruto burst through the door, panting and sweating. They were playing a board game that Naruto could tell was complicated and boring even from the doorstep.

He didn’t know what was more surprising, that Shikamaru had actually come and stayed, or that Sasuke had let him. Either way, Sasuke looked fine enough.

“I’m home,” he called, feeling a little silly now to have been so worried.

“Welcome home,” Sasuke called back, an automatism by then.

“How was your day?”

“…Fine. Yours?”

Sasuke wouldn’t say more in front of Shikamaru, or at all. Naruto could believe him anyway, so he didn’t insist.

“It took so long! I didn’t think the paint would stick like that… we even had to repaint it because the bleach took out the original paint too. That was kind of fun. Iruka-sensei didn’t find it funny though.”

His clothes were ruined, covered in red paint and bleached out by the cleaning products, but it the day hadn’t been so bad. Shikamaru had promised he’d check on Sasuke, and Naruto had trusted him to keep his words, so he’d managed to keep his worry to the minimum. Rightly so, it seemed.

“I’ll be going then,” Shikamaru said, rising from his chair.

“Wait! Do you…”

Naruto’s mouth snapped shut audibly. He looked at Sasuke, Shikamaru, Sasuke again. He tried to subtly ask Sasuke if Shikamaru could maybe stay for dinner, if it was okay, but Sasuke wasn’t getting it. His eyebrow shot up, then came down in a frown, and then moved around to convey meaning too, that Naruto couldn’t get either. It lasted an absurdly long time.

“My mother doesn’t like it when I skip dinner without letting her know beforehand,” Shikamaru announced, cutting the exchange and resolving the issue before it was even voiced out.

“Alright,” Naruto said, a little disappointed. Wouldn’t it be fun to have a friend over for dinner, to play hosts in their home, like adults did? Besides, he wanted to thank Shikamaru for his help. He didn’t have to come today, to do what Naruto asked, but he had.

It was Sasuke who opened his mouth next. Sasuke who said it.

“Another time maybe.”

Naruto stared at him, mouth agape. He recovered quickly though. The smile that broke through his face hurt a bit.

“Yes!”

“Yeah, why not.”

Shikamaru packed his game and said his goodbye. Soon enough it was once again Sasuke and Naruto in their flat.

“Warn me next time,” Sasuke said as he cleaned up the tea and snacks.

“Yeah. Sorry. I was just worried so I thought… Sorry. It wasn’t so bad though, was it?”

“…No.”

Sasuke scowled and pouted like he didn’t like that answer.

“Well I’m glad then.”

They would need rules for that kind of things, Naruto though, if it happened that they did invite friends over. He was relieved Sasuke wasn’t too mad. He knew him and Shikamaru would get along fine. They were both smart and quiet, it had to help, right? And Shikamaru was great.

“Naruto.”

“What?”

“Thank you.”

Naruto made a mental note to buy one of those board games, and maybe bake something good for Shikamaru.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coincidentally, Fugaku has the same birthday as my father.
> 
> You have no idea how many times I misspelled "Shikamaru" while writing this x) Fortunately I taught my Word all of the Naruto characters names haha. I'm really into Sasuke and Shikamaru's friendship (I'm into Sasuke having friends in general). The most boring friendship ever, but it's nice too sometimes.
> 
> As someone who has tutored a lot of kids (and want to be a teacher, incidentally), I was glad to write Naruto being overjoyed by a result that is objectively nothing to brag about (on that note, I pulled their grading system out of thin air). Another student would have been super disappointed by that grade, but it's not about the hard numbers. And Sasuke was proud indeed! (headcanoning Sasuke with super weak constitution cracks me up he's gonna be sick all the time in winter and Naruto will be so freaked out and Sasuke will be super jealous of his top health)
> 
> As always I'm on [tumblr](http://inrainprose.tumblr.com) for updates, fanarts and general rambling. Come say hi and tell me what you think, bye!


	5. Choji

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter one this time that kinda go in pair with the previous one (cause the boys do :p). We'll jump back on more ploty/angtsy stuff next time with Neji haha, but real life is going to be pretty busy for me, so updates will be a bit slower from now on. Enjoy!

“You two should come to my house on Saturday.”

Standing a step behind Shikamaru like he usually did, Choji couldn’t see his friend’s expression, but he could picture it just fine, if only by studying Naruto and Sasuke’s reaction. No doubt that Shikamaru looked sour and annoyed about it, and that they were wondering if the offer was genuine or if maybe someone was forcing his hand. Which was wrong – Shikamaru had agonized over it all on his own for the better part of the afternoon. Choji could tell when he was genuinely daydreaming, and when his mind was eating itself.

Choji hid a smile behind a mouthful of chips – Shikamaru was quite susceptible to mockery, surprisingly enough, especially when it came to his blunt and sometimes offensive attitude. Choji just found it funny because he knew it wasn’t on purpose, but Shikamaru had been called rude and cold more than once, and Choji was unwilling to twist that knife.

“Really?” Sasuke asked, skeptical, quick to cut Naruto’s eager answer. He had never seen the blonde boy take offense in Shikamaru’s lack of tact. One of the reasons why Shikamaru was so fond of him, and Choji too.

“Yeah, really,” Shikamaru sighed, annoyed both at them and at himself for being doubted. “We can play shogi, and Naruto, you can…”

“Pet the deer!”

Once again, Choji pictured just fine Shikamaru’s eyes widening slightly, his mouth hanging open for the split second it took him to recover from Naruto's outburst, which never failed to catch him off guard.

“I heard there were deer running free in the Nara woods! It’s true right? And we can even pet them?”

Choji decided to intervene then, to give Shikamaru some respite.

“It’s true, yes. There are also a lot of squirrels and birds that let themselves be approached sometimes. I’ll show you.”

Naruto beamed, Sasuke frowned, Shikamaru mumbled under his breath. Same old, same old.

.

Inviting one of their friends over had been daring enough, but this felt even bigger for some reasons. Naruto and Sasuke were standing at the gates of the Nara estate, waiting for someone to come fetch them. Naruto had meant to enter right away of course, and Sasuke had barely managed to convince him to stand by. Now wasn’t a time to offend one of the most influential clans of the village because the blonde was too excited about the local wildlife to see reason. Sasuke wasn’t exactly aware of the Nara’s traditions, all he knew was that outsiders wandering into the Uchiha district without even announcing themselves would have been frowned upon. Better safe than sorry.

They were a little early on the decided time, so Sasuke tried not to worry about seeing no one coming down the path through the wood that stretched beyond the gate. Naruto was rocking on his heels, pouting at him. Sasuke ignored him.

“What are you doing out there?”

They turned in the same movement to see Choji walking toward them, his eternal snack tucked under his arm.

“Sasuke says it’s unpolite to go in without permission.”

“ _Impolite_.”

“You have permission. You were invited, weren’t you?”

Naruto turned a triumphant smile toward Sasuke who blushed darkly, embarrassed. He expected Choji to mock him further, but remembered after receiving only a smile and a gesture for them to follow him that Choji had never been known to mock anyone. Except maybe Shikamaru.

He trusted that the boy wasn’t having them on, and seeing how much time he probably passed at the Nara’s, surely he was as good as one of their own member to act as a guide. He hoped, anyway. He wasn’t keen on Naruto and he being thrown out and banned without further notice.

The main building of the estate wasn’t too deep into the woods. He knew the Nara lands to be quite extensive, but it was mainly wildness – there weren’t so many of them. In fact, they probably all lived in the surrounding houses, that were close enough that he could make them out through the trees, but still far enough to provide some privacy. Choji led them around the building to the back wing, more modest in size.

“Shikamaru and his parents live here,” he explained as they neared the wooden patio that lined that part of the building. Shikamaru was already waiting in front of a shogi board, all set up. Even from there Sasuke could tell it was a very nice one.

“What took you so long?” he drawled out when he saw them. Sasuke grimaced, embarrassed all over again. He had made them late with his worries.

Choji only shrugged as he sat down at the edge of the patio and picked a mochi out of a truly impressive pile from a plate nearby. Naruto imitated him of course, but not before greeting Shikamaru and thanking him for having them, bright and heartfelt.

So he _had_ been listening to some of Sasuke’s rants about politeness after all.

A good thing, because Sasuke felt a little overwhelmed. Being here, on a clan’s land, in a clan’s main house – family house – it didn’t sit so well with him. It was frustrating how he could tell in advance, could never know to what he would react badly. It was stupid and yet, there was no helping it. He sat down on the other side of the shogi board with a “thank you for having us” that was barely legible. Shikamaru waved a dismissive hand, eyes already set on the game. He moved his first piece.

And proceeded to thoroughly obliterate Sasuke in a few moves.

When they had done it the first time, Sasuke hadn’t minded that much. He had just been beyond grateful for the distraction. But he wasn’t sad anymore, and Shikamaru kicking his ass wasn’t sitting well with him.

At all.

“Another one?” Shikamaru asked, all smug.

“You’re on.”

.

Shikamaru was more engrossed in the game that he thought he would. Sasuke wasn’t excellent, but he was decent enough – better than anyone their age, on all account, although that wasn’t saying much. There was something else though. It was different, playing with Sasuke, with Choji and Naruto talking softly beside them. Shikamaru had assumed the blonde would be bored in no time, but he had underestimated his focus. Choji was explaining to him the rules and moves of shogi as they played, and if it was clear Naruto wouldn’t become an avid player anytime soon, he wasn’t scorning at it either.

“See? The knight entered that zone there, so he’s being promoted.”

“Right… are those all Shikamaru’s pieces?”

“Yeah, look, they’re facing this way.”

“Ooooh. So Sasuke’s losing.”

Sasuke’s frown deepened as Choji snorted.  He was, indeed, losing, albeit not as fast as during the first game. He looked very sore about it, but it only fueled his drive. Shikamaru was glad. Sasuke wasn’t going anywhere.

“You’re good at this, Choji!” Naruto exclaimed after yet another round.

“Being friend with Shikamaru, you have to be.”

Shikamaru turned slightly to smile at his friend, and he saw Naruto looking somewhat dejected.

“You don’t _have_ to,” he amended. Choji had a good grasp of it, but not much talent nor interest for the game. Contrary to what his father said, Shikamaru could be friend with people who didn’t play shogi.

Naruto kept asking questions and Choji kept answering, as Sasuke scolded harder and harder. Really, it was different from usual, from playing with adults. Shikamaru was used to being surrounded by adults, and he didn’t mind it so much. He had never heeded his mother’s worries about him not having friends his age. He did have one friend. He didn’t need much more.

He had to admit it though. This was nice.

This was really nice.

As it often went, his mother chose that moment to ruin it.

He had told her – repeatedly – to please not barge in onto them when she came back home. He had warned her that the boys would be over and that they would be skittish around her. She had agreed to leave them be, but he had known, deep down, that there was no way she would keep her words.

And so what had to happen happened.

“Hello there!”

Sasuke sprung to his feet, straight and tense as a bowstring. Displaying impressive speed, Naruto was behind him in a heartbeat, hiding without subtlety.

At least his mother had the good sense to look sheepish.

“Well, well, there’s no need to be so jumpy! It’s all fine.”

They looked only half-convinced, and tensed all the way back up when his father decided to join the party, because another scary looking adult was just what they needed.

“I’m Nara Yoshino, Shikamaru’s mother,” she said with a smile, hoping to put his friends at ease. “And this is my husband Shikaku.”

“I know.”

Sasuke bit his lips, self-conscious.

“Sorry. I mean I… I remember. We’ve… met before.”

Both adults’ smile froze on their face, although Sasuke didn’t look particularly accusing.

He could have been, Shikamaru knew. That’s what his parents thought anyway.

“You’re right. Do you boys want something to drink? I’ll bring out some ice tea.”

His mother disappeared back inside the house, following his father who occasionally proved more tactful than she was – or just more cowardly, but the result was the same.

“I’ll give her a hand,” Shikamaru said. He found his mother busying herself with slicing a lemon at the kitchen counter, his father making a bad job of pretending to read a report at the nearby table.

“You’re always saying I’m smart for my age,” he said, putting the glasses and pitcher she had gotten out on a trail. “But that doesn’t mean kids my age are stupid.”

She didn’t answer, meaning she was aware she had made a mistake. As headstrong and bothersome as she could be, she at least could recognize her faults.

He could understand they hadn’t thought about it, but even he remembered. The memory was blurry, yes, but he could still make out the shape, the light, the boredom that had plagued that whole afternoon, because Sasuke and he hadn’t been authorized to slip out and escape all the boring talks.

It had been only once, several years ago, but indeed Sasuke had met his parents. And Shikamaru had met Sasuke’s.

He was angry at himself for not having paid more attention to his parents’ relationship with the Uchiha. To how they had reacted to the news of their demise. The information didn’t hold much interest to him back then, and he tended to thoroughly erase irrelevant bits of information from his mind. At any rate, they had known each other, enough to be invited to each other’s house, enough to introduce their children. Even if it was nothing but political business, they were still acquaintances at least.

A fact Sasuke seemed to be well aware of.

His mother had been elated, that he was inviting people over, she hadn't batted an eye at what people exactly. She thought it was him "coming out of his shell" as she put it, finally getting more sociable. It's true that it was very unlike him to force on himself the company of others, as he usually let those things happen on their own, or not happen at all. And yet, here he was. Making the effort. He told himself that he just liked to do better than his parents, generally speaking. It was true enough.

And maybe he wanted to do something nice for the others too. Who knew, right.

He carried the tray back out on the patio, only to find it deserted by Naruto and Choji, gone deer hunting by the trees a few meters away. Sasuke was sitting in front of the shogi board, still tenser than earlier. He accepted a glass wordlessly.

“Your turn?” Shikamaru asked. Sasuke exhaled, relieved that there would be no talking about things as he had surely feared. He could relax around Shikamaru, who would have rather died than broach a sensitive subject on his own. In that sense, he had a feeling they understood each other very well.

“You’re on.”

.

Maybe it was a little silly of him, a little childish, but Naruto had always figured that if animals weren’t wary of him, then no matter what adults said, he couldn’t be _that_ bad a child.

Naruto patted a hand on the deer’s forehead, who was bowing under the ministration. Choji had explained that they were “domesticated”, like house cats and dogs, and so weren’t afraid of people. But that they still didn’t let just anyone approach them. None had shied away from Naruto’s touch, and it was stupid to be so pleased by it, but he loved animals and he trusted their judgment. He had worth in their eyes at least, they didn’t shun him like people did. Naruto was ready to trust a deer’s judgment over a person’s.

He was prevented from fully enjoying the experience by the incident with Shikamaru’s parents. He was ashamed now to have reacted this way, when Shikamaru had assured them that his parents were okay with Sasuke and him coming over. Old habits died hard though. Sasuke had been just as worried.

“D’you think Shikamaru will be mad at us?”

Choji looked up from the squirrel eating nuts from his open hands to lay a questioning look on him.

“Why would he be mad?”

“We were pretty rude to his parents.”

Naruto new firsthand how bad it felt to be feared for no reason. And they had had no reason to fear them. Nothing he would want to voice out loud or even formulate in his mind anyway.

“Don’t worry. He didn’t mind.”

“You sure?”

“Of course. Besides, you weren’t that rude. Just a little wary.”

Naruto lowered his hand and crouched down to his level, so that he too could observe the little squirrel. It peeked at him curiously while munching on its snack.

“It’s not like I want to be like this. It’s just…”

He didn’t know how to say it. He didn’t even want to.

“I get it.”

“You… You do?”

“Yeah. If most people are mean rather than nice, it figures that you’d start assuming they’ll be mean from the start.”

Naruto stayed intently focused on the squirrel in order not to meet Choji’s gaze. The boy had had his fair share of mean people too. Kids mostly, but some grown-ups too on occasion. Not always mean, not on purpose anyway, but people were easily mean without noticing, and it didn’t sting any less.

“I’m glad we came today,” Naruto eventually said, when he didn’t feel so uneasy, when his anxiety had settled down a little. If Choji said things were fine, Naruto believed him. Choji wasn’t a liar, and he was a true expert in Shikamaru.

“I hope we can do that again,” Choji answered.

Naruto beamed at him. He hoped so too.

.

“Hey, Sasuke.”

“Hm?”

“We’ll… we’ll come back, right?”

“…Of course. I have to beat Shikamaru.”

“Cool. ‘Cause it was… you know.”

“What?”

“It was nice.”

“Oh. Yeah. Yeah, it was.”

.

They went back from the Nara’s estate with a mountain of food that Sasuke suspected had been discreetly brought over by Choji’s mother when she had come to fetch him at the end of the afternoon. It wasn’t really that, anyway – she had arrived suspiciously laden and had drunk tea with Shikamaru’s parents for two more hours at least. It had been Choji who had made the decision to leave so that they wouldn’t be late for dinner.

The whole thing was bittersweet for him, in a way it clearly wasn’t for Naruto. Naruto had never experienced anything of the sort and he was relishing in the whole thing. Being invited over. Interacting with parents. Visiting someone’s room.

There was this question that plagued Sasuke’s mind. He thought about it often, but he never brought it up. It would make Naruto confused and sad, so he kept it to himself.

He constantly wondered though, what was worse, between having known this and lost it, and having never known it at all.

Naruto had no idea what family life was like. A house that saw visitors, family friends and friends’ families. Traditions, habits, _memories._ At the Nara’s Sasuke could see all that and had to fight against his own mind eager to overflow him with images of its own. Women of the clan coming over to drink tea and gossip with his mother in the late afternoon. Adults he barely recognized but who obviously knew him and ruffled his hair with a grin as he hunched, displeased. How difficult it could be to even be alone sometimes, since there was always someone around, something going on.

All the time he had spent playing shogi whit his parents, what was Naruto doing? It wasn’t something he thought about at the time. Naruto didn’t exist in his mind then. But now, he wondered. When he ate dinner with his family, Naruto ate alone. When he played with the other Uchiha kids, Naruto played alone. When his mother comforted him as he cried, Naruto cried alone.

All of that was lost to him now, and it was a loss he felt acutely at all time, that always threatened to swallow him all. And still, did he wish it had never happened? Would it be easier to have gone through life without knowing?

Was it worth all that pain?

There was one thing that always stopped him from asking in the end – they had each other now. And since they had each other, neither was alone anymore. Naruto could experience those things, and Sasuke could again too.

In the end, he was grateful for it all.

Even if he wasn’t sure it would last.

They had enough food to last them almost the entire week, and yet a few days later Choji offered some more. “My mom made extra,” he said with a completely straight face, despite it being ridiculous. They could just have kept it. From what Choji and Shikamaru said, it happened all the time.

They weren’t about to refuse though. Or well, Naruto certainly wasn’t. Sasuke felt uncomfortable accepting charity from virtual strangers, but the food was good. Very, very good.

"My mom takes personal offense at kids that don't eat well," Choji said as an excuse the next time. This one, Sasuke didn’t like.

He didn’t want to dwell on those feelings. He didn’t want to have them at all. This anger and resentment at about everyone around them, all those adults that should have been there and weren’t, the ones that were friends with his parents and didn’t even come to the funerals, the ones that ignored Naruto while he was all alone. If Naruto wasn’t angry at them, he shouldn’t have been either. But Naruto not being angry made him angry too.

He didn’t understand how the blonde could be so forgiving, so ready to forget and move on. He could speculate that Naruto didn’t feel like he had the luxury to stay mad at people, since he got so little positive attention in the first place. How willing he was to accommodate Sasuke at every turn as proof enough of that, and it fell on Sasuke to refrain from taking and taking, since Naruto, if not told otherwise, would give and give, and give some more.

Naruto would have never left a kid alone like all the others had done with him.

If Choji’s mother wanted to help, why not do it sooner? Naruto eating terribly was nothing new. If anything, he had never eaten better, than since Sasuke had moved in with him.

So Sasuke didn’t like it, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t let it show. Naruto was happy for the attention and the gifts, so Sasuke could deal with it.

He had said nothing, and yet the next time, the first thing Choji said when distributing equally the huge pile of tempuras he had brought with his lunch, was “these ones, I made myself.”

There was no reason to read anything into it. And yet Choji smiled at him, a little shy, a little knowing. Sasuke blushed and looked away.

“Wow, they’re good! Choji, you can cook!” Naruto exclaimed, impressed.

“My mother is teaching me. She says it’s important skills and that she won’t ever have to worry about me starving then.”

“That’s so great. Say, d’you think you could teach us? We’re not so bad either with Sasuke! But we still burn stuff sometimes.”

“You burn stuff.”

“I told you to watch it while I went to pee!”

“Who goes to pee while they’re cooking?”

“Well, those who have someone else to cook with them, duh.”

Choji chuckled and even Shikamaru grinned. Naruto went back to his food like he had won the argument somewhat. Honestly, Sasuke could never really tell who.

“I can show you some stuff if you want, but I’m no way as good as my mom.”

“You’re fine,” Shikamaru weighed in, eyes on the sky. It made Choji’s face go soft.

“We can plan lessons! And then you can stay and have dinner with us afterward!”

Sasuke rolled his eyes. This was Naruto’s new obsession – invite people over. It was a big deal for him to bring them into his space and provide. Sasuke could indulge him.

“If Sasuke agrees,” Naruto added seriously. The others raised a questioning eyebrow at him. “No inviting people without warning the other,” he explained vaguely.

They had come up with a few rules about houseguests, since it looked like it was going to be a thing. Shikamaru showing up out of the blue was an emergency situation, but in general, they both agreed they wouldn't be too keen on their home being invaded without notice. 

“Why not,” Sasuke muttered, knowing Naruto would take it as enthusiastic consent. He was a little jealous that the other bot thought they needed the help – he thought they were doing pretty well on their own. But Naruto had no qualm about being taught. He was an avid learner, when he wasn’t mistreated in the process, and he was nothing but impressed with people knowing more than him, never jealous. Besides, one lesson Naruto was better at than him was the “you don’t need to do it alone, you can ask for help” one – Iruka had been drilling that in for a while now. Since Sasuke didn’t know how to follow it, he deferred to Naruto on the matter, even though he wasn’t that stellar at it either. The list of people he was actually willing to ask help from was dramatically short.

“Cool,” Choji concluded, unbothered.

They went back to eating in companionable silence and Sasuke had to admit, those tempuras were pretty good indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it unrealistic how much love there is in this AU x) I don't care. The angst train came crashing down in my other fic, I need to compensate. We could have seen more of Choji (I actually had another mini arc planned but I moved it to another part the other day for Reasons. Also some of those scenes should have been in the previous one but. Reasons) but well. We'll see all of them again anyway. I'd like to apologize to Sasuke (and you) for constantly reminding him that his whole family is freaking dead.  
> Tumblr [that way](http://inrainprose.tumblr.com) and wish me luck because I need to study hard for an upcoming exam I should have started on waaaaay sooner (it's all Naruto's fault)


	6. Neji

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's not gonna get as smoothly as the others haha. Neji's being difficult but don't worry, he'll cave eventually, like the rest of them.  
> It's weird for me 'cause I'm writing two canon rewrite at the same time, I don't want to repeat stuff y'know. But some problems are the same so... They're handled differently though ^^ I hope you'll enjoy!

“I don’t understand how you’re so bad at this.”

Naruto let go of his pose and flopped down in the grass, frustrated. Sasuke was sitting cross-legged on the ground, a scroll on basic chakra control open in front of him.

Naruto didn’t get offended. One, because he knew Sasuke was genuinely wondering and not insulting him, even if it wasn’t obvious to the untrained ear, and second, because he was right. Naruto was _terrible_ at ninjutsu, and he didn’t know why either.

“I swear I’m trying,” he still defended.

“I know, I know. There’s got to be something.”

Sasuke had explained it to him several times. Naruto was sure he had the hang of it, and when he started on the jutsu, things were fine. He was doing the signs okay, he could call up chakra. But something always derailed at some point, and he never managed to go through with it. The worse was the clone jutsu, because it was the most obvious. His clones could barely stand – when they had any human form at all.

Everyone in their class could do at least one clone, not easily, not perfectly, but they could. There was only him. He would have dismissed it as him just not being good enough, but Sasuke was certain there was something more to it. He had resolved to look on his own since none of the teachers were of any help. Iruka trained with them from time to time, but he was very busy, and he didn’t know why Naruto was failing ninjutsu either. Sasuke was committed now, and Naruto secretly hoped he wouldn’t give up on him.

It was all the more frustrating that he was slowly but steadily improving in every other area. His grades were up, and taijutsu was going great since they had started training with Lee. Now that Naruto could keep up with him for two whole minutes – Sasuke could do five, obviously – taijutsu at the Academy was a joke. Naruto was starting to believe that he could be good, for real, if he worked hard on it.

And then there was ninjutsu.

“You know what, there’s someone who could help us,” Sasuke said after a moment of silence where they did nothing but stare at the moving clouds. They were in a field near the forest, away from most habitations. Naruto had shown Sasuke this spot, along with many others across the wildest lands of the village, and they preferred it to the training grounds, because they were left in peace here.

“Really? Who?”

“A boy I know. But I don’t know where we’ll find him…”

“Can’t we go to his house?”

Sasuke made a grimace.

“No.”

Naruto didn’t ask.

“Do we have to go today? I’m tired. I want to go home.”

They hadn’t trained that long, but there were only so many failures Naruto could take in one day. Sasuke didn't call him out on it, and they made their way back home.

“Who is it you wanna ask anyway?” Naruto enquired later, curious, as they looked at their clothes turn and turn in the laundry machine.

“You know Hyuuga Hinata, in our class? It’s her cousin. Name’s Neji. He’s the year above us. Best in his class.”

Sasuke looked sour about that.

“Is he a… friend of yours?” Naruto asked, confused.

“He’s not.”

Sasuke looked offended by the mere idea. Naruto chuckled, amused by his disgruntled face. He got a searing glare for it that only made him want to laugh harder.

“You should see your face!”

“Shut up!”

“How d’you know him if he’s not your friend?”

Sasuke shrugged but failed to look as casual as he was trying to.

“It’s… I used to go to these… things. My parents sent me. We went to clan’s houses and we hung out with the other kids. To built relationships. Stuff like that.”

Naruto could only infer that it hadn’t worked out that great.

“Is he an heir to the Hyuuga then?” he asked. They had been getting into internal politics lately for their history class. There was a lot of stuff he didn't know about the Uchiha clan, let alone the other big ones, and clans in general. Truth be told, the notion was confusing to him – family was abstract enough of a concept, clans eluded him entirely.

Sasuke’s face soured even more, if it was possible.

“Not… exactly. Hinata’s the heir.”

“Really? Were you friend with her then?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“She’s boring.”

Sasuke blushed faintly at his own bluntness.

“That’s not nice!”

“Well she is! She never said a thing and she always stayed in her corner by herself.”

“Oh, and what did _you_ do?”

Sasuke grumbled but didn’t answer. Touché. Naruto couldn’t picture him doing anything else than not saying a thing and staying in his corner by himself, at an event like that.

“How d’you know Neji’ll help then?” Naruto asked, stirring back the conversation to what mattered. Sasuke grimaced at him “eating his words” as he said it. He wanted Naruto to talk better, and that only encouraged Naruto to talk worse just to annoy him. Sasuke hadn’t caught up to that yet.

“I don’t. Actually, I’m sure he won’t. But it’s worth a shot. The Hyuuga have the Byakugan and if there’s something going on with your chakra…”

“Is it better than the Sharingan?”

“What?”

“The Byakugan. Is it better? Is that why we have to ask him? You can’t do that with your eyes?”

“What… That’s not it! It’s not better.”

“Well it’s better for that.”

Sasuke huffed, indignant. Naruto had to focus not to laugh. Sasuke was just too easy to rile up.

The machine beeped loudly, cutting off a scathing retort, and they busied themselves with packing the wet clothes to be hung up back at the apartment. Naruto couldn’t help but be curious at that Neji now, and he couldn’t wait to see Sasuke ask him for help. A great sacrifice indeed, all for Naruto’s sake.

Sasuke was nice like that.

.

Tapping at the Hyuuga’s door was out of the question. Sasuke didn’t like them, and they probably didn’t like him either – they would shut the door to their face. Plus, giving Neji’s… situation, it was likely they wouldn’t know where to find him anyway. Wouldn’t care, or he wouldn’t have told them.

Why had he suggested that? Neji was the _worst._

It was Naruto’s fault, as always. He managed to bring out the worst of Sasuke’s competitive and impulsive treat, that his father had tried to rid him of when he was younger. But really, to the point he would willingly seek Hyuuga Neji out… That was ridiculous.

They resolved to do it the easy way and simply follow him after school. Neji was a training freak – he would no doubt go train somewhere as soon as classes were over, and hopefully on his own. He had no friend anyway. Because he sucked.

“Is that him?”

Sasuke rolled his eyes and elbowed Naruto in the ribs.

“Ow!”

“Not so loud idiot, he’ll hear us!”

“Well don’t hit me then!”

Sasuke hit him again for good measure, albeit not as hard – they did need to be discreet if they didn’t want Neji to spot them. They followed him through the village’s streets at a reasonable distance, that kept increasing because Naruto was distracted by anything that could possibly cause any form of distraction, from colorful shop windows to a mouse disappearing in the gutter.

By some miracle, they managed to tail the other boy all the way to a remote training ground that was about as far at the Hyuuga district as could be. Neji was on his own. It was now or never.

"Can I inquire as to why you're following me?"

Sasuke cursed internally. Of freaking course.

“Oh, Sasuke, we were caught!”

“You think.”

“Yeah, look, Neji saw us.”

Sasuke wanted to go home already.

But since they were already in that mess, they could at least try to make the best of it. Sasuke stepped out of the tree shadow they were hiding in to approach the other boy, who looked at least as displeased as Sasuke felt.

“Hi, Neji.”

“What do you want.”

Sasuke had not spoken to him in over two years, but he still managed to annoy him in record time. It was a gift.

“We… need your help,” Sasuke grumbled between his teeth. This was a terrible idea. They had to find someone else, anyone. Even Lee would be better to help with ninjutsu than freaking _Neji_.

“ _You_? You want _my_ help?”

The boy managed to look both pissed off and smug about it. Sasuke was going to punch his stupid face.

“And who’s “we”?” he added, casting a pointed look at Naruto. Sasuke all but threw his friend at the other boy, with no shame whatsoever. There was no reason for him to deal with this on his own.

“Hello, I’m Uzumaki Naruto, it’s nice to meet you!” Naruto exclaimed brightly, if a bit uncertain. He extended a hand.

 Neji ignored it.

“Hey, don’t be rude like that!” Naruto protested, vexed. He only got a disdainful look for his trouble. He rolled his eyes, dropping his hand. Sasuke had the small consolation of confirming that this wasn’t on him. Neji was the problem here.

“Sasuke said you two knew each other and that you could help me with my chakra control problems maybe,” Naruto said next, never one to sugarcoat anything. That at least had the merit to take Neji off guard. Sasuke couldn’t blame him – this came literally out of nowhere, and he had to wonder why on earth Sasuke had made that suggestion in the first place.

He was wondering too. It was Naruto’s fault, really.

“And why would I do that.”

It wasn’t even a question. Sasuke still answered.

“Just to help. You know, like decent people do sometimes.”

“What would you know about being decent.”

“More than you, obviously!”

Naruto had been wrong to assume that Sasuke did nothing but sulk during those boring afternoons of clan bounding they were forced to attend. He mostly sulked, yes. But the rest of the time, he got into screaming matches with one Hyuuga Neji.

Their parents had been mortified, the first few times. Eventually, they had given up on trying to break them out of it. He had even heard his mother said to his father once that at least they did have a relationship, sort of.

Neji was just so damn infuriating. He always looked down on everyone. He made zero effort to be nice or at least accommodating. Sasuke had no illusion about his own people skills, but at least he didn’t try to be a dick at all opportunities.

Neji was going to answer, something super mean and stupid probably, but Naruto beat him to it, his expression pensive as he looked alternatively between the two of them.

“Sasuke, do you not like him because his hair is prettier than yours?”

Sasuke’s jaw dropped to the floor.

At least, Neji was worst off. He spluttered and tumbled over his words, split between confusion and indignation. For his defense, who would know how to answer to that? Sasuke was dying of embarrassment. Why did Naruto always do that. Couldn’t he interact with others like a normal person.

Easy answer. No, he couldn’t.

“What the _hell,_ Naruto!”

“What! It’s true! It looks super nice!”

The worse thing was he always dug deeper, oblivious to the effect of his words. Sasuke had often been at the receiving end of his weird out of the blue and heartfelt compliments, but now really wasn’t the time.

“Leave my hair out of this,” Neji scolded. It lacked heat though. Naruto was great at destabilization, even involuntarily. 

“Alright, alright, sorry,” Naruto said, not looking sorry in the least, and eyes still suspiciously trained on Neji’s hair. That boy was a menace.

“Please go away.”

“What? Why? I’m sorry I talked about your hair! Please, I really need help!” Naruto pleaded. They weren’t meant to get along – Naruto wasn’t equipped to deal with people like Neji, who didn’t care about being nice or helpful.

“I don’t care! I want nothing to do with you. Go away.”

Thinking back on it, Sasuke didn’t know why he had ever thought this would work.

“Come on, please! I’ll give you whatever you want!”

“There’s nothing I want that you can give me.”

Sasuke’s eyes flickered to the bandage circling the other boy’s forehead. Neji caught him, and his face hardened.

“Leave.”

Feeling Naruto was about to argue some more, and that Neji’s patience was running out fast, Sasuke took the executive decision to remove them both from the boy’s view, least it devolved into a fight. He dragged Naruto away by his shirt sleeve despite his protestations.

“We’ll try another time,” he said under his breath, hoping Neji wouldn’t catch it.

“Don’t bother!”

He had.

“We’ll be back, Neji!” Naruto said cheerfully, and sometimes Sasuke was convinced that Naruto only played the airheaded fool, and was actually the worst tease ever.

“Well, that wasn’t so bad,” the blonde said once they were out of sight and ear. Sasuke couldn’t help but laugh. Naruto was way too optimistic for both their sake.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I expected it to go differently.”

“It’s alright, we’ll try again!”

“I’m not sure…”

“No, we will.”

Naruto looked determined. Sasuke didn’t argue. The boy would do as he pleased anyway.

“Let’s find Lee then!” he exclaimed, tireless as always. Sasuke wouldn’t have said no to a few hours of peace and quiet at home, but he wasn’t going to let Naruto train while he lazed around

Lee was hitting his usual training post, which was still standing, amazingly enough. Once he was done with his current series, he and Naruto engaged in their usual enthusiastic exchange of loud greetings, before Lee enquired about their day as they started to stretch.

“We met Hyuuga Neji today! Isn’t he in your class, Lee?”

Even not-too-good-at-feelings Sasuke could immediately see that Naruto had hit a nerve. Lee was very much like Naruto though, and he rarely let anything show when he was upset, preferring to smile his way through it.

“Of course I do! He’s the best ninja of my year. A real genius!”

It wasn’t envy or jealousy in Lee’s voice. Longing, maybe. Sasuke could only imagine how horribly terrible Neji was with his classmates, and especially classmates that didn’t perform to his ridiculous standards.

“We wanted advice on ninjutsu,” Naruto said, a little cautious, having caught on Lee’s reluctance too.

“Really? What did he say?”

“He said no. But it’s okay, I’ll ask again.”

“Good luck with that, Naruto! Neji sure is stubborn. What did you think of him?”

“…He has pretty hair.”

And really, for Naruto to have only “pretty hair” to say about someone, that someone had to be a major prick. Proved by science.

“He’s a prick,” Sasuke added, deciding to share his conclusion. Lee let out an embarrassed laugh, either because he didn’t know how to refute it, or because he agreed.

“Kinda,” Naruto admitted with a laugh. Of course it was nothing but funny to him.

“He can be a bit rude I guess,” Lee said with a tone that suggested he thought Neji was a lot ruder than that.

“What is it that he wants?” Naruto asked suddenly.

“What?”

“He said there was nothing I could give him that he wanted. But he still wants something right?”

Sasuke thought of the head bandage. Of what his mother used to say about the Hyuuga clan. “At least we’re not the worst,” she would sigh sometimes after a fight with his father. It sounded like a consolation, although it never seemed to bring her that much comfort.

“I guess. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know. I’d like to help him. He feels sad.”

Sasuke had stopped questioning that kind of statement coming from the other boy. He didn’t understand how Naruto, who was constantly putting his foot in his mouth with his inability to read a mood or a social situation, could be simultaneously so attuned to others’ feelings. He went to people out of the blue, asking them what was wrong, and they always looked surprised but he was always right. Sakura, who had had a fight with her mother, or Kiba, when one of their dogs was sick. And Sasuke, of course, who could never hope to hide his feelings from him. Naruto could just tell.

He could _feel_.

“Things are not easy for him,” Lee said after a pause, uneasy.

“How so?”

Sasuke kept his eyes on his legs as he tried to reach his toes, unwilling to answer and unwilling to show he could.

“Don’t you know? I’m not sure about the specifics but… He doesn’t get along so great with his family.”

That was an understatement.

“Oh. That’s sad.”

There it was again. At some point Sasuke had thought Naruto said these things as a form of mimetism, because he had learned somehow that family troubles or the likes were sad indeed. It’s not like he had any idea. But no. He found it genuinely sad, as in it made _him_ sad to think about it. By extrapolation, or something. Naruto could feel anyone’s pain, no matter how distant from him and his experience.

Sasuke wasn’t super fond of this peculiarity.

“It’s okay, I’ll figure something out!” Naruto declared, absolutely confident in the fact that he would manage to win over one Hyuuga Neji.

Even Lee looked skeptical.

.

Sasuke had said it was a mistake to count on Neji for anything, and that they’d best give up and find someone else. But Naruto was committed now. First, because he had asked Sakura a crash course on the Byakugan. She had agreed with a lot of complaining that had ultimately resulted in a two-hour presentation with graphs and pictures. He was now convinced that Neji could, indeed, help – and that Sakura was an old academy teacher trapped into a young girl’s body.

Second, because he was curious about the other boy. He reminded him of Sasuke, a little – not that Naruto would say that to his face. He didn’t want to have his hair burnt short. But Neji was prickly and prideful just like Sasuke was. He was, from what Naruto had heard, at odds with his family despite still leaving at the Hyuuga compound, and he was the best of his class by a wild margin. Really, Naruto couldn’t be blamed for the comparison.

The most noticeable difference was his white eyes, when Sasuke's were a bottomless black.

And he had prettier hair.

That’s why despite the lecture, Naruto didn’t turn toward Hinata like he could have. He wanted to go after Neji. And maybe he was also convinced that Hinata was super scared of him, with how she stammered and fidgeted every time he was nearby. He didn’t want to frighten her with strange requests. She was cute and sweet and had never been mean to him despite her obvious fear – the least he could do was respect the distance.

That’s how he found himself tailing Neji again the next day.

The boy was much less compliant this time, but Naruto was very good at this. He had run away from jounin though the village half of his life, and the other half he had been the one running after them to catch them in a prank. Neji was underestimating him.

“Why are you here again? I told you to leave me alone,” he said as soon as Naruto caught up to him at another training ground. This one was smaller, closer to the center of the village, sandwiched between buildings, which made it kind of sheltered. The district kids used it as a ball court more often than not, but the few that approached turned tail as soon as they spotted Naruto and Neji there. He wondered which one of them had made them run away.

“And I told you, I need your help!”

“And I told you you wouldn’t get it.”

“Why not?”

“If you can’t do something, maybe you’re just not meant to achieve it.”

That gave Naruto a pause. What a strange thing to say, he thought.

“I have to at least try.”

“Why?”

Why? Well, he had to graduate from the Academy. And he had to become a good shinobi, so that the village would see value in him, and an extra good one so that they would make him Hokage. And for that, he needed to learn ninjutsu. There was no way around it.

“I need to!”

“What you need or want is irrelevant. You either can do it, or you can’t.”

“That’s crazy! We learn new things all the time.”

“Maybe. But it doesn’t make much of a difference in the end. No matter what you learn, that’s not what will change you.”

“What… That’s not true.”

“It’s not?”

It wasn’t. Naruto didn’t have the words to explain it, but he knew in his heart that it wasn’t. The boy was looking down on him though, so certain to be right, and Naruto hated what he was saying but he didn’t know how to counter it.

“Why do you train so hard then?” he asked, shamelessly deflecting. The boy remained unfazed.

“I have to be the best I possibly can.”

“See! You also want to…”

“I don’t _want_ to. I have to. It’s what I’m meant to do, that’s all. I’m not trying to be anything I’m not. Neither more, nor less.”

“If there’s something else you want to be doing,” Naruto said, confused, “then why don’t you just do that instead?”

The glare he received for this could have melt metal probably. Neji’s eyes were mesmerizing, both their shocking white color and how they still managed to convey so much emotion.

So much rage.

Neji could look aloof and emotionless, but he was anything but. The Sasuke parallels just kept piling up.

“I wouldn’t expect an orphan to understand.”

Naruto recoiled despite himself. He knew it was only meant to hurt – it worked. Lee had said he didn’t get along with his family. Sasuke had talked about things called “expectations”, a few times, when Naruto had asked why it was so important that he excelled at all time.

Neji’s pain was obvious. Some of it, Naruto knew well – solitude, the feeling that no one in the entire worlds could possibly understand his struggles. The rest, it was foreign to him – the weight of other’s wishes, the lack of freedom, the burden of his family name. No one had ever asked anything of Naruto, if only to stay away from them.

It was obvious, and yet.

“I know you’re hurting,” Naruto said, trying not to let it show how he hurt himself, “but it’s no excuse to hurt others.”

Neji was caught off guard, but only for a moment, before his scowl returned full force.

“I told you to leave me alone,” he said as if it justified anything. Naruto was too worked up to come up with a smart answer. Those were Sasuke’s forte anyway. If he was here, he would know what to say to shut the other boy up, but Naruto couldn’t come up with a retort on the spot.

It didn’t matter. He would be back.

“You’re wrong,” he declared, determined. “You’re wrong, and I’ll prove it to you!”

“Please don’t.”

“Mark my words, you will change your mind! And you will train me! That’s a promise!”

Naruto ran off after that, but not before hearing an outraged “No I won’t!”.  He didn’t turn to yell back, but the thought was there.

_Yes, you will._

.

Sasuke regretted deeply introducing Naruto to Neji.

He should have known it was a disaster waiting to happen. Naruto had the compulsive need to befriend literally everyone he came across, and that even included jerks like Neji. He was now determined to make a friend out of the Hyuuga boy and Sasuke knew there was nothing he could say that would deter him.

That in itself wouldn’t be such an issue, if Naruto hadn’t decided that Sasuke was an authority in the Neji department.

“Come on, why won’t you just _tell_ me?”

It had been going on for days, Naruto pestering him continuously to obtain some insight on the other boy out of him. He had caught on the fact that Sasuke knew more than he had let on about Neji’s situation, and he wasn’t going to let it go.

Sasuke wasn’t sure why he was so reluctant to share what he understood of the Hyuuga’s weird system with Naruto. It wasn’t even a secret – most shinobis were aware of it, especially clan members. But as much as Sasuke despised Neji, it felt rough to spill it like this. If Sasuke had been in his situation, he would have hated people discussing it behind his back.

However, his principles were rapidly being overwhelmed by Naruto’s great power of annoyance.

“Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me…”

Sasuke was going to strangle him.

“Will you _please_ shut up? Why is it so important to you anyway?”

Merciful silence fell on the other side of the table as Naruto gathered his thoughts to answer. Sasuke was able to answer the very first question of his history homework, despite having been at it for almost an hour.

Naruto was going to be the death of his good grades at this rate.

“I guess I just… I’d like to help y’know. If I can.”

Of course he did, and that was the reason why Sasuke was hesitating to tell him everything. It wasn’t mean, pointless curiosity from Naruto’s part. He had taken to Neji’s troubles, and he felt compelled to do something about it.

Not unlike he had been for Sasuke.

And Sasuke knew that if someone could get through Neji’s thick skull, it was Naruto. It had worked for him after all.

He sighed, making a point to let it drag out as long as he could so that Naruto was aware of how very annoyed Sasuke was at him. It wasn’t very effective though, because Naruto knew that to mean Sasuke was giving up.

Crap, he was infuriating.

“Alright. If I tell you a bit about the Hyuugas, will you let me do my homework in peace? And do your own while we’re at it?”

Naruto hadn’t even opened a book to at least pretend he was studying. He nodded eagerly. Sasuke rolled his eyes, having very little faith in Naruto keeping his words on that.

He had to think about it for a while, because the problem was pretty complex. Especially since Naruto had next to no notion of clan dynamics. Or family dynamics for that matter. The burden of legacy was foreign to him, who didn’t even know who his parents were.

“Okay. You see, the Hyuugas are among the most powerful clans of the village. They have their dojutsu, and their own techniques of taijutsu, and they’re pretty powerful in general. Plus they have a lot of their own in high places and they don’t mix up much with people outside the clan, so they’re important.”

“Kind of like… Huh, I mean…”

Naruto wrinkled his nose, his tell when he regretted what he had just said. Sasuke took a deep breath.

“Kind of like the Uchihas, yes.”

The dull pain that came with it was familiar by now. His clan had been bypassed entirely during their lessons on current affairs, he wondered if they were already being relegated into the history lessons. He had done his best to ignore what had followed his clan downfall. Who was in charge of the Konoha police now, what had been made of their legacy and possession. He didn’t want to know. He was fine burying it all deep, deep down.

“The two clans are… were… are, are kind of rivals, I guess, because of their similarities. The Sharingan is better than the Byakugan though.”

The Uchiha clan wasn’t extinct anyway.

Naruto hadn’t actually ever been exposed to either of the dojutsu, and he simply took his words for it. If only to placate him. Sasuke would convince him of that later.

“Every clan have their own traditions you know, their way of doing things. The Hyuuga have a… a house system. Meaning their clan is divided into two parts. The ones that lead and the one that…"

Sasuke hesitated. It had been explained to him quickly and vaguely back then, with all the disdain his father could express to Hyuuga Hiashi’s clan, of whom he always spoke with great frustration and annoyance. To be honest, Sasuke hadn’t paid much attention.

He was older now, and it carried a very different meaning.

“The one that… serve.”

Naruto was listening intently and a crease appeared between his eyes as he processed Sasuke’s words. They didn’t really hit though.

“Serve?” he asked, puzzled.

“The main house are the ones that take the decisions and run the clan, and the branch house is there to… hum… they have to protect the main house, mostly.”

“And to do as they say.”

“Yes.”

Naruto was frowning full force now.

“But why?”

“I don’t know. That’s just how things are done. For them.”

Sasuke couldn’t pretend he understood either. His father hadn’t seemed that much against the principle at the time – at least the idea of established hierarchy appealed to him. But since it came from the Hyuuga, he couldn’t be too praiseful of it.

“I don’t think that’s very cool,” Naruto said.

It was said so simply, blunt and brutally honest, and for Naruto it was an obvious thing to say. Sasuke hadn’t been that bothered by it, he recalled. Clans had all sorts of odd traditions and this was just another one. The Uchiha too had some people above others, it didn’t sound out of the ordinary.

“What about Neji?”

“He’s from the branch house. That means that he’ll always serve the clan’s main house no matter what. That’s just how things are.”

“And Hinata?”

“She from the main house. She’ll probably be head of the clan someday.”

“Even if she doesn’t want to.”

“I… guess,” Sasuke said, stumbling over the answer. Why wouldn’t she want to? That wasn’t even the relevant question. She would just do it. She had to.

“I don’t understand.”

“What?”

“I don’t understand why they don’t just let people do what they want to do.”

“It’s… They have to obey the will of their clans.”

“But why?”

Sauske had never asked himself that question. It had never even crossed his mind. They had to honor the clan and serve its interest. No one ever questioned that.

“It’s just… how clans work!” he said, frustrated. “You wouldn’t…”

He caught the words before they were out, but not fast enough that they could slip past Naruto.

_You wouldn’t understand._

“Yeah. I know,” he mumbled, looking away. Sasuke didn’t mean to upset him, but it was so hard to communicate with him sometimes. They were so different, not just in their personality or behavior, but in how they had been brought up, how they saw the world and understood it. There were so many things that were obvious to Sasuke, and that were completely unknown to Naruto. Sasuke was never done discovering the depth of Naruto’s ignorance.

“Sorry.”

Naruto shrugged.

“Thanks for telling me,” he added, before taking one of the exercise sheets out of his bag to start working on it. He looked more pensive than hurt and Sasuke decided to drop it for now. Naruto didn’t hold silent grudges, so they were fine.

“Say, will you come with me to see Neji next time?” he asked.

Sasuke groaned. That was retribution for sure.

.

“Are you serious? What are you doing here again? Are you looking to get beaten up?”

Neji wasn’t very happy to see them.

“I’d like to see you try!” Sasuke retorted, unable to help himself. Naruto couldn’t laugh, even if he wanted to. He was eager to befriend Neji just so that he could see him make Sasuke blow a fuse every time they saw each other. It was so nice to see Sasuke like this, when he was always so cool and collected.

It was hilarious too.

Now wasn’t the time for fun though.

“Is it true you can never be free of your family’s wishes?”

No fun indeed. Neji’s face soured as if he had bitten in a whole lemon, and Sasuke gasped at his side, appealed as usual was by Naruto’s lack of tact. What was the point of “beating around the bush” – Shikamaru had taught him that one – since he was going to say the uncomfortable thing in the end? Better get it out from the start.

Neji glared dagger at Sasuke who looked away, trying not to look guilty and failing spectacularly. His poker face was the worst _._

“That’s none of your business,” Neji said coldly. It occurred to Naruto that this could very well end up in a proper fight if he didn’t start to beat that bush a little. And he had no idea how to do that.

“I just want to understand. Why you do it. If you don’t want it.”

Judging by Neji’s face, he had failed on the tactful part.

“What, didn’t Sasuke told you about that too?” Neji spat out, getting truly aggressive now.

“No. If he knows, he didn’t tell me.”

Sasuke had been nice enough to share what he had when he didn’t want to. Naruto had felt bad about it too, but it’s not like he could ask Neji directly.

Except he had just done that.

“Do you know what a seal is then?”

“I’m not dumb!”

“Could have fooled me.”

Neji paid no mind to their indignant protests, as he reached around his head to untie his bandage.

There was something on his forehead. A sign, like a cross, with two lines running along his hairline, ending in hooks. It looked like green ink, but Naruto could speculate it wouldn’t come off as easily.

It was kind of ugly too.

“People can’t do what they want, simply because they want to. Are you so naïve to believe the house system of the Hyuuga clan is just some sort of mutual agreement? Who would choose to live his life as a slave?”

Neji was getting heated up despite himself, as he grimaced at his own words like he regretted saying them. Naruto was starting to feel really bad about this. His knowledge about seals was vague at best, and still he knew a few things, like how they could be durable, powerful and very sturdy, and how they were mostly made to… seal things.

“What is sealed into that one?”

Neji didn’t answer. Naruto turned toward Sasuke, who knew, because he looked away like he did when he didn’t want to answer a question.

“Sasuke, what is sealed into that one?” Naruto asked again, a little distressed. He didn’t like it at all, but he needed to know.

“Freedom, I guess,” Sasuke said with a shrug. “The future.”

“What?”

“Those on the main house, who have the key to our seals,” Neji said, face carefully blank now, as if he could convince the others he felt nothing over this, “can easily cause pain through it. Or death.”

It was obvious he had witnessed both. Naruto had been exposed enough to Sasuke to recognize anger covering for pain, and the calm and care with which Neji tied the bandage back couldn’t hide the turmoil of his emotions. Naruto tried to picture it. It was his family they were talking about, people close to him, who were raising and caring for him and yet… a sense of betrayal, confusion and fear, pain, then anger, resentment, the weight of a fate one couldn’t break free of.

Neji looked back at him, expectant, waiting for a reaction, an answer.

Naruto burst into tears.

.

There were days when Neji almost manage to convince himself that he had made his peace with it.

It was just how things were, decided long before he was born, a fact he couldn’t fight nor should he have wanted to. He didn’t. He accepted it, like the other members of the Bunke did. It was an honor to serve the Soke and he didn’t need to reach out for more than that. Neji was content to live a life of duty and honor.

And then he would get a glimpse of Hinata in the corridors, stumbling after her father who was walking too fast for her to keep up. Hinata who could do whatever she wanted to do, be whatever she wanted to be, and who chose to do nothing at all, just fail her way into training and be a spectator of her own life.

Only a glimpse and his anger was set ablaze once more, and he wondered why. Why it was this way. Why him, why her, why them.

He remembered how he had felt the first time he had met her. She was sweet, and so small, and he wanted nothing more than to protect her from all harm. He had always wanted siblings, a bond like his father and uncle shared, someone that was always by your side, that would always have your back.

He had quickly discovered things were far from what he had imagined. But he would have protected her all the same.

Why mark him then. Why make the choice for him, for all the others. What kind of loyalty was that?

Neji was four then and had been taught the hard way that fate wasn’t a nebulous, conceptual idea that you could choose or not to believe in. Fate was a very tangible force, manifesting in plain sight, in the form of a brand carved into his head, a fact of life that couldn’t be challenged or questioned. Fate couldn’t be disputed – it would have been like refusing to believe in rain, or in death.

The Hyuugas were lucky in the sense that they learned that lesson very early in life, while all the others stumbled in the dark, convinced that there was something they could do to change their fate, to chose their own path in life. There wasn't. They couldn't. They all had their own seal, they just couldn't see it, and they fought against it in vain, again and again despite the pain it caused them.

Like that idiot Lee and his childish wishes, his stupid faith into a future that would never come to pass. His seal was his inability to perform ninjutsu, and no matter what he did, he would never get passed it.

The most frustrating thing Neji had to deal with was that people simply couldn’t understand that. How could they be so stubborn in the face of something that was ineluctable? They were all stupid.

That Naruto boy was a fine example of that. That he reminded Neji of Rock Lee wasn’t in his favor of course. The sooner the boy would accept that fighting fate was useless, the sooner he could move on with his life and let go of his useless wishes. Maybe it was mean of him, but Neji hated dumb perseverance like this, when it was unjustified. Maybe he wanted to hurt the boy. Maybe he wanted him to get that harsh wake-up call, the way Neji had all those years ago under the searing pain of the branding of a seal.

The boy started to cry though, and Neji doubted it was because of that.

Neji cast a disbelieving, slightly panicked look at the Uchiha, who was, in essence, responsible for all this. The other boy had the nerve to look at _him_ dirty, like it was his fault somehow. He patted his friend on the back without much conviction.

“Sorry… sorry, ‘m sorry,” the sniffling boy kept repeating while still being unable to stop. He did calm down eventually, even if it left his face red and gross. Sasuke handed him a tissue with the face of someone who was used to it, and neither of them thought useful to explain to him what had just happened.

“Is that what you want then? To be free of that?” Naruto asked once he was recovered enough from his ordeal.

“What?”

“Is that what you want? Do you want the seal to disappear? Do you want to be able to do what you want?”

“What are you… What does it have to… It doesn’t concern you!”

“It does! I told you I’d give you whatever you wanted!”

That left Neji’s mouth hanging. What was this boy’s damage? Was he crazy? Sasuke looked all smug by his sides, obviously delighted by Neji’s loss of composure. What an insufferable duo.

“What are you talking about.”

“I’ll just add it to the list!”

“What?”

“I’ll be made Hokage someday.”

The way he was saying it, he could just as well have been asserting that the sun would rise above the earth tomorrow morning. He was completely serious.

“When I’m Hokage, I can change things. Sasuke said I should make a list. Oh, do you know Tenten? You must know her, she’s in your grade! She made me add a tone of stuff to the list, like how kunoichi wouldn’t be forced to learn “girl stuff” if the boy weren’t, like sewing and flowers, and also that they’ll be trained just as hard and that they won’t be forced to have kids if they don’t want to. She’s very passionate about this stuff,” he added as an afterthought, as if that justified any of this nonsense somehow. Neji did know Tenten, and he wasn’t surprised to hear that about her.

The most surprising thing was probably that she knew them, and that she had indulged in such pointless wishful thinking. Oh, and that that weak nine-year-old was planning his political agenda, apparently.

“As the Hokage, I’ll be able to make people do stuff. Or I’ll do them, if they don’t want to. I’ll help you then.”

Still dead serious, the boy raised a hand to point his thumb at his own chest.

“I’ll give you what you want.”

Neji wanted to laugh. He would have, had the blonde been addressing anyone else, because this was hilarious. As it was, it only served to anger him even more.

“Who do you think you are?”

“I’m Uzumaki Naruto. I’ll be the next Hokage.”

Neji wanted to punch his face in.

And there was no reason not to do just that.

He launched himself at the other boy, determined to erase that expression from his face, that absolute faith in something that was nothing but an illusion, a determination that made no sense at all, that went against all Neji knew to be true about this world. This wasn’t how life worked. Big words and talks and puerile dreams didn’t matter in any way, they didn’t grant anything.

As expected, the dumb blonde didn’t react fast enough. Neji had not accounted for the other one though.

What did Uchiha Sasuke care about that boy, why was he even here? Neji had never seen him express any interest toward another human being, except maybe his brother at times. He was as arrogant and egotistic as the rest of his clan.

Except there was no Uchiha clan left now.

Sasuke blocked his first hand, then the second. Neji jumped back as the Uchiha fell into a defensive position in front of his stunned friend.

“Don’t touch him,” he warned.

“There’s no need to be mean,” Naruto exclaimed at his back. Neji rolled his eyes.

“You started it!”

He regretted the outburst immediately. Not only was it childish and petty, it also gave too much away, on how they had affected him exactly. He shouldn’t have cared about what they said, shouldn’t even have listened.

Why, why had the very first thing Naruto said was “let’s remove it then”? Didn’t he know anything about clans, about traditions and power balance, about impunity? As if he could just march there and demand. As if it was that simple.

If it was, surely someone would have done it by now.

“I… I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry.”

Neji needed to get out here.

“You stay away from me,” he said weakly before pushing past the two boys. Mercifully, they didn’t try to follow him this time. Training forgotten, he hurried home, eager for some peace and quiet, and to be alone.

Only when he crossed the threshold of his house did he remember that there was no such thing to be found for the branch house of the Hyuuga clan.

“Back already?” his mother asked, surprised, from the low table where she was having tea with her sister and a few friends. Usually Neji managed to make abstraction of it, but today his eyes fell on their bandaged forehead, and he felt like he couldn’t breathe.

“What?” he shot back, almost yelling. “Do you think I don’t train enough?”

He didn’t wait for an answer before turning away. There would no doubt be a cousin or three upstairs in the rooms. All children of the branch house lived under the same roof, raised by the Bunke’s women when they weren’t caring for the Soke’s offspring. At least when he was a proper ninja, he would have his own quarters in the barracks. In the end he would likely be moved to the main house when Hinata took the lead of the clan, never to be too far from her.

Never to be on his own. His own person.

He marched out of the house and rounded the building to get lost in the gardens. Some spots were secluded enough if one knew where to look, and Neji knew this place inside and out.

He sat on a bench hidden by a huge lilac tree and tried to calm himself down.

He was both full of restless energy and inexplicably tired. He didn’t understand why he was so worked up about the whole thing. He wanted to forget about it all, to think of something else, anything. But his thoughts left on their own always ran in one direction, and he didn’t want to go there either. He didn’t need to get even angrier.

Instead he focused on one question, that was inconsequential maybe in the grand scheme of things, but that drove him crazy with its lack of plausible answers.

Why, why had Naruto cried?

.

"Are you adding it to the list then?" Sasuke asked when he saw Naruto reach for the scroll. It had its own spot next to the Rule scroll, and Naruto spent more time than he let on pondering over it, writing and rewriting some lines so that they sounded "more grown-up" as he said.

He took it very seriously.

“Of course. Why is everybody letting that happen? It’s not fair.”

“He won’t help, you know.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll still do it.”

Sasuke peaked over Naruto’s shoulder to see what he was putting down on the paper with his uneven handwriting.

_The Hyuuga branch system will be destroyed forever because it sucks. Neji will have his seal removed._

“Poetic as always.”

“Shut up!”

Sasuke pondered then as he looked at Naruto’s list that this too was a form of seal, if one had a will powerful enough to make it work. Sasuke had his own too, that he had carved himself or had been carved by other into his own fate.

He wondered which ones would win, in the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I watched Devilman Crybaby last year and it really moved me. I adored it from start to finish and it left me in shambles its so freaking depressing. One details that stuck with me for some reasons is that the hero cries when others are sad around him. That time in the locker room in particular, for those who have seen it, really did something to me. I wanted to give this to Naruto - it's borderline a supernatural ability, and its an extension of his huge empathy. It will come up again in the future ^^
> 
> Don't worry I won't leave you hanging like this! The Neji case will be revisited and resolved in a later chapter (guess which one). It's funny to me that Naruto thinks it's fear that makes Hinata act like this around him, even though thinking about it, it's kinda sad. That's for later though. Next one up is Ino! We're officially more than half-way through this part (and more than 30k in wtf)


	7. Ino

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "This one won't be that long", I think to myself. "I don't have much to say. It's not so bad to make a shorter chapter, this thing is getting out of hand enough already". I look at the word count. 4540. Welp x)
> 
> I don't think Ino and Naruto need an excuse to become friends. So they just do ^^ Fair warning if you know stuff about plants, I don't, and I made really really quick research to fill up this chapter. I hope it won't offend anyone haha. Enjoy!

There was a set of bells above the door. Tied to colorful ribbons adorned with beads, which were tied in turn to a wooden ring suspended above the door by a set of strings. Naruto remembered distinctly the day they had made those mobiles at the Academy. They had a few of those arts and crafts workshops scattered throughout the years when they were younger, and he wasn’t very fond of those. He was clumsy with his hands and much slower than the others, and at the end of the day when they all rushed out to show it to their parents, siblings or guardians waiting at the school gates, Naruto stuffed his badly made creations in his bag and went home with the urge to throw it in the trash. He did, more often than not. He didn’t wish to hold on to memories of these times.

He had thrown away the bell set too. His was far uglier than the one above that door.

It was the same pattern, the same rhythm every time. Someone would open the door and make the bells jingle happily. They let go of the door as they walked into the shop. It closed slowly, slowly, slowly enough that Naruto could hear the beginning of the conversation from where he stood on the sidewalk, just out of the way. “Hello” or “Hi” they said. And Ino’s bright, cheery voice to answer without fail “Hello and welcome to the Yamanaka’s flower shop! What can I do for you?”.

Usually the door jostled the bells one last time just as whoever it was who had entered began to rattle off their order. A few minutes later, never too long, it opened again, letting the exchange of “thank you” and “you’re welcome, come back soon!” filter out, always accompanied by the singing of the little bells.

Then, as the door closed once more, Naruto considered slipping in and entering the shop too. That way at least he wouldn’t be the one to disturb the peace, to ring the bells.

So far, six persons had gotten in and out of the flower shop, and he had stayed rooted to the spot.

It shouldn’t have been so hard to just walk into a simple shop, he had done it plenty of times before. But it was always the same apprehension, the same bargain – would they throw him out or not? Would they ignore him or not? Would they be willing to serve him?

The list of shopkeepers he was and wasn’t welcome by was almost exhaustive – Naruto was familiar with the whole village, for better and worst. Almost, because there were the few odd places he had never dared step into.

Like the Yamanaka flower shop.

It had nothing – or very little – to do with the fact that Yamanaka Ino was kind of scary. But it was one thing to get thrown out by a complete stranger, and it was another entirely if it was a classmate or one of their relatives. Someone he had to interact with on a daily basis. How could he ever show his face at school again if Ino had witnessed him getting manhandled out of her flower shop? Or worse, had told him to get out herself? At the Academy, the kids were in for a stern lecture if Iruka caught one of them bullying another, be it Naruto or anyone else. But out there, there was never anyone to take Naruto’s defense.

Not if Sasuke wasn’t around, anyway.

Things were different now though, weren't they? Naruto had met Shikamaru and Choji's parents, and things had been fine. He wouldn't have gone as far as to say he was friends with Ino, but they were on friendly enough term.

Surely it couldn’t go that bad.

Truth be told, he had been dying to come here for a long time now. The Yamanaka flower shop was without question the best one in Konoha. They were the biggest, for a start, and the ones that had the widest variety of flowers and plants, the best gardening tools and products. They grew a lot of rare and dangerous plants that needed special authorizations to be bought and were exclusively used by shinobis.

They were just the coolest.

Naruto had made do until now because he seldom bought his plants. Most of the ones he had in his apartment, he had picked them up in the forest, or, at times when he was feeling really bad about the world at large, he had stolen them from unsuspecting gardens and windowsills. Not his proudest moments, but he had neither the money nor the opportunity to buy some of those plants. And he always wanted more.

But now he had a problem he couldn’t solve himself. Some of his plants were parasitized by some kind of bugs and he couldn’t get rid of them no matter what he did. They had almost killed some of his smallest ones, and he didn’t really have the opportunity to go parasite-hunting for hours every day.

Plus, he needed to find a present.

Surely Ino would be okay with selling something to him. He had come on her shift on purpose, but if he didn’t hurry she would leave her place to another member of her family, or simply close shop for the night.

The door opened to let out a young man with a pleased smile, holding a small bouquet of yellow flowers tied with a white ribbon. No, it wasn’t the right time either. Maybe after the next one…

“Are you gonna come in or what?”

He jumped out of his skin and almost crashed into the huge lemon tree he was hiding behind. From the doorframe, Ino laughed at him, before gesturing for him to come inside. He followed her in hastily.

It was even better than he had thought. The shop was big, and yet cluttered, with the number of pots crowding the ground, the shelves haphazardly set up here and there, and the ones suspended to the metal bars of the glasshouse frame that made up the front half of the shop.

She hopped up behind the counter and turned her eyes on him.

“So, what can I help you with?”

It was strange to see her like this, helpful and professional. She had a bit of a mean streak at school that had some of the other girls call her a “bitch”, at times. Never to her face though, they weren’t brave enough.

“I… I have a problem. With my plants.”

“What kind of problems? And what kind of plants?”

“Parasites. I’m thinking mealybugs? On my perennial plants mostly, but it’s spreading to the flowers too. The cacti are spared but it might be because they’re distant enough, and the woody plants don’t usually catch that kind of bugs so…”

He trailed off, distracted by her expression of growing interest and surprise. She had certainly never looked at him like that.

“What?”

“Nothing. I didn’t expect you to know so much, that’s all.”

“I know plenty,” he defended. His green hand was about the only thing he was truly proud of, and he wasn’t going to let it be doubted.

“I can see that. Well, if it’s mealybug, I could sell you some of the stuff we give to get rid of those, but I’m not really partial to them myself. They’re efficient, but the plants don’t tend to enjoy them much.”

“I need something though.”

“What we do here, is ask the Aburame.”

“What?”

“They grow all kind of bugs, not just the ones they use for combat. They have a variety that specialized in protecting plants from other bugs. They’re also pollinators, for certain species. Come on, I’ll show you.”

A bit dumbfounded, Naruto followed her lead through the back door behind the counter. It led to a short corridor, and then to another glasshouse, that had to be square on the Yamanaka lands, contrary to the shop, that rested on their outer wall.

The glasshouse was huge and housed a small jungle – it was lively, noisy, just like a real one, with flies and butterflies and bees, and even a few birds perched on the trees and rods under the high ceiling.

“There, those ones,” she said, pointing at a small black insect busy crawling down the leave of some kind of ficus.

“And they don’t cause any harm?”

“No. They’re well behaved too, so they’re suited to inside plants, even if it’s better to have a window open somewhere if possible. They leave in the winter – parasites are less likely then, and the plants grow stronger against them anyway.”

“That’s so awesome.”

She gave him a big grin, as delighted, it seemed, as he felt.

“Isn’t it? The bugs don’t need any maintenance see, cause they eat the plants’ waste – dead leaves and the like, and what they reject in the soil. It’s the perfect system!”

Naruto reached out to carefully pluck the little bug out of its plant.

“It doesn’t fly, but it can jump,” Ino warned prophetically, just before the bug hopped out of Naruto’s hand to go back where it came from. Naruto imagined it huffing at him in annoyance, to have been disturbed like this. He chuckled.

“Can I get some then?”

“Well… To be honest we’re not supposed to share them. But you could ask Shino.”

Naruto’s smile fell – that was another person he didn’t know that well to ask things from. Shino was a little less intimidating than Ino, but only barely. In another style. The silent staring one.

“D’you think he'll help?" he asked, unsure. They had never talked much – Shino didn't talk, as a rule. But he never complained when Naruto sat by his side, and he lent him supply when Naruto had forgotten his own. He couldn’t be that bad.

“If you’re respectful about it. The Aburame are very touchy about their bugs. Don’t be mean and you’ll be fine.”

“Okay. Okay, I’ll do that.”

“Cool!”

She took the way back to the shop, and he had no choice but to follow, even if he would have liked to stay in the greenhouse a little while longer.

There was someone waiting around when they returned.

“Oh, hello! Sorry I was busy in the back, I didn’t hear the bell,” Ino said easily.

“It-it’s okay. It’s no problem.”

It was Hyuuga Hinata.

Naruto rounded the counter awkwardly and found himself next to her, not sure what to do next. He still needed a present, and now that he was here, he wanted to spend more time in the flower shop, maybe buy a new plant or two for himself as well, but Hinata was always so skittish around him, and it made him skittish in turn, afraid of making a wrong move and frightening her even more.

“Hi, Hinata,” he said lamely because it was the polite thing to do. She reddened and looked down at her feet, unable to meet his eyes.

“He-hello.”

“Was there something you wanted, Hinata?” Ino asked, commanding her attention away from Naruto’s presence. He resolved to hang around the shelves and wait until they were done. He wasn’t in a hurry.

“I need… I need a bouquet. Flowers.”

“Is it for a special occasion? For someone in particular?”

“It’s f-for a birthday. My aunt.”

“Oh, that’s nice! It’s a good gift. So, how old is she turning? Do you know what she likes?  Are you like, buying yourself, or is it an order from your family at large?”

Quiet and subdued Hinata actually fared a lot better when asked direct, precise questions. Naruto forgotten, she relaxed marginally with the other girl, and she answered without much hesitation, even if she still stuttered her way through it.

“She’ll be fifty soon so it’s… a-a grand occasion. But I don’t know… And no, it’s, it’s only me. I’d like to give her something nice. Something that will l-last.”

“Don’t buy flowers then!”

Hinata startled badly and even Ino was caught off guard by the outburst. Naruto rubbed his hair, sheepish, but he couldn’t help himself.

"A bouquet wastes away quickly," he explained as he walked back to them. "You should take something in a pot, something that’s still alive.”

“You don’t get potted plants for birthdays!” Ino exclaimed, indignant.

“Why not?”

“Because… because you don’t!”

“But it’s a good gift!”

“Hum…”

They both turned toward Hinata in the same movement, making her lean backward, a little panicked. She still couldn’t look at Naruto, so she focused on Ino.

“You used to…used to make these arrangements. For Ikebana lessons, back when we were younger…”

“You remember that? It’s been ages,” Ino said dismissively.

“It was beautiful. I do remember.”

“If you say so…” Ino mumbled, embarrassed. “What about it?”

“I was wondering if you still d-did that.”

Naruto turned the same questioning look as Hinata toward Ino.

“Do you?”

“What? What about it?” she snapped back, defensive.

“That’s just cool. I remember your girls getting Ikebana class while we were stuck in weapon making. I asked if I could switch, but they always said it was a girl’s class only…”

Picking up flowers was a hundred times nicer than wrapping a piece of clothes around a kunai’s handle for thirty minutes straight because it kept tangling up and twisting. Naruto wasn’t confident he would have been any better at Ikebana than arts and crafts, but at least he would have enjoyed himself a little more.

“It’s… been a while,” Ino eventually confessed, looking at him with a weird expression on her face. “But I… still like it.”

It was like she thought it was a bad thing or something.

“Would you… I-I remember there were those pots, and wooden sticks and some rocks too so that… Even if the flowers are gone, it’s still-still nice. So I was thinking maybe… I-I’ll buy it, of course. So if you’d want to…”

That was too much for poor Hinata who never asked for anything ever. Her face heated up in record time, red as if she had been running for hours, and just as breathless. Ino was quick to rush by her side to soothe her, taping clumsily on her shoulder.

“I don’t know if I’m still any good,” she said with a laugh that sounded a bit forced. “But I’ll give it a try, if you want,” she added to stop Hinata from trying to claim otherwise. “When do you need it?”

“A-a week.”

“Well, I’ll see what I can do. And I’ll… put a potted orchid for you on the side,” she added, glaring at Naruto who just grinned, victorious. “A nice one, so that you can take something home in any case. How does that sound?”

Naruto didn’t remember ever seeing Ino and Hinata interact at school. Ino was very social, but Hinata kept to herself – she didn't have many friends, was even picked on by some other girls at times, her quiet, withdrawn nature making her an easy target. He didn’t think he’d ever witnessed Ino being so nice to her. He wondered why people were so different at the Academy than what they were outside of it.

Hinata agreed with a few nods, seemingly done with talking for the day. Naruto couldn’t help but ask though, just as she was passing under the bells.

“Say, Hinata, your aunt… is it Neji’s mother?”

She was so surprised, she forgot to get embarrassed. She forgot to blush, she even forgot not to look him in the eye. They were so similar to Neji’s, the same opalescent white, fairer even than their pale skin.

“Y-yeah. Yeah. That’s her.”

Then she came back to herself, blushed again, ducked her head, and ran away.

“I don’t get why she’s so scared of me…” he pondered aloud, a little hurt. Ino scoffed.

“You’re just an idiot.”

“What? Why? Do you know?”

“She’s not scared of you!”

“She sure looks like she is!”

He couldn’t help how it affected him. He didn’t remember ever being mean or dismissive of the other girl, he made a point of being nice to her since she was so shy. For some reasons it was worse coming from a classmate who was supposed to know him at least a little, compared to strangers in the streets who probably adhered to some conception of Naruto he was not aware of and couldn’t change. Being hated without being known didn’t hurt as much.

“Just… trust me on this. She’s not.”

Naruto shrugged, preferring to let it go. He would be the first to admit he was no expert in girls’ behavior, but wasn’t Hinata’s way of acting pretty obvious? Why did people have to be so complicated.

“Did you want something else then?” Ino asked. He tried to determine if she looked like she wanted him gone or not.

“Well, now that I’m here… I’d like to buy a plant. Or two.”

“Which ones?”

“A pothos, for a start,“ he said after a brief reflection. It would make a nice gift. ”And then… I don’t know? One I don’t already have.”

“Like what?” she asked as she trusted a pothos of reasonable size into his hands. “Do you want a planter with that? How many do you have already?”

“Why not. Like, how many different?”

“I don’t know. Or in total.”

Naruto tried to make a rapid count, visualizing all the pots scattered throughout the apartment. Most of them were in his room – they had a deal with Sasuke about their respective collection not invading their shared spaces too much. It turned out that Sasuke, if he wasn’t outright allergic to pollen, wasn’t desensitized either, so Naruto kept the most flowery ones in his rooms. There were still a few on the kitchen counters, on the windowsill, the ones on the balcony, the big peach tree in a corner of the living room...

“Well?” she asked, impatient, as she stacked pots and planters up and down to find one that would fit the pot she had given him.

“I don’t know! Thirty, maybe?”

She paused to look at him, eyes bulging comically.

“That’s… a lot.”

“Is it?”

He didn’t have much of a reference. He was aware that some people didn’t have any at all, which he found beyond weird. How dull and lifeless his place would be with no plant at all. But Sasuke’s reaction toward their many roommates gave him an inkling that he was indeed a little overenthusiastic about the whole thing.

“Alright,” Ino said, a new determination on her face, as she handed him a nice yellow planter to put the pothos in. “Let’s find you something.”

They dived together into the extensive collection of the flower shop. Each occurrence of Naruto already having the plant Ino pointed out to him only fueled her ambition to find the one he could take home. The rarest plants were out back though – there in the sections destined to the civilians, it was things he already had.

“I have a very important question to ask you, Naruto,” she said, dead serious, as they moved toward the cactus section.

“What?” he asked, on guard.

“Do you name your plants?”

He reddened despite himself, spluttered a little around an answer.

“N-No?”

She raised a doubtful eyebrow at him.

“Yeah…” he eventually admitted, ready to fight her off if she mocked him. But instead, she clapped her hands together with a high pitched “perfect!” before pointing at the clivia in his back.

“So this is Nana. She’s been a little down lately so I moved her out there in the sun. Seems to suit her much better.”

“Her?”

“All plants are girls,” Ino deadpanned. “Cacti are boys though. And for trees, it depends.”

He wasn’t about to dispute her.

It turned out she had named almost all the plants and flowers of the shop. Naruto had always felt a little silly about it – he still tried to keep his ramblings to the plants to a minimum when Sasuke was around – so it was nice to see he wasn’t the only one. He really wouldn’t have pegged Ino to be the type. Then again, what did he know about her?

When she went to take care of the few customers wandering in, he drifted back to one corner of the shop where the most delicate flowers were set up. There was a beautiful azalea sitting there in its little pot, the only one of its species. They were delicate and hard to maintain – Naruto had had a few in the past, but they were already overheated when he had stolen them from windowsills, and they hadn’t lasted long.

He was busy staring at it longingly – seeing its price tag buying it was out of the question – when Ino appeared in his back with a “boo!” that made him jump and almost lost his grip on the pothos. He pouted at her bright laugh.

“So, what were you…”

“Ino!”

They both jumped this time and spun around toward the backdoor that had sprung open on an angry looking woman glaring at them full force.

“What is he doing here?” she demanded, pointing at Naruto with her chin. He tried to hide behind the girl as subtly as he could.

“Aunt Mako, don’t be rude!”

“Excuse me? How many times have I told you not to bring your dates here!”

“That’s not-“ “What?”

They both leaped sideways to get away from each other, flustered. Naruto was mortified. The woman being angry just because he was, well, him, would have been less embarrassing after all.

“He’s not my date!”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t date her,” Naruto said without thinking. The woman raised a mocking eyebrow as Ino turned to glare daggers at him.

“And why not?”

“No but, I mean…”

“That’s enough! I’m taking over. Get the hell out of here, both of you.”

“Aunt Mako…”

“I said leave!”

They both scrambled out of the shop without further prompting, bumping into each other as they spilled into the street and ran a little longer for good measure.

They stopped by the next street corner, out of breath and disheveled. It only took one look for them to dissolve into manic laughter.

“You should see your face!” Ino howled, crying with laughter.

“What! She’s scary!” Naruto defended weakly, too busy laughing and comforted by the fact that Ino had looked just as scared. He was cradling his plant in his hands, uncomfortably aware that he had kind of stole it.

“I know, I know. Sorry about that. She used to be much nicer.”

Her expression sobered up as she stood straight, looking wistfully back where they had come from.

“What happened?”

“I… I had a cousin.”

She didn’t add anything. Naruto could piece it together.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” she dismissed, waving a hand in the air as if to dispel their sudden sadness. “Here!” she proclaimed, thrusting her hands toward him.

She was holding the azalea, grabbed in a haste during their escape no doubt.

“It’s… I don’t, I don’t have enough,” he stammered, bashful.

“Come on, take it, it’s a gift. I had fun today. You can see it as a first time customer offer.”

She probably wasn’t exactly allowed to hand out the Yamanaka’s products like that, he pondered, but didn’t say. He insisted to give her money still, for the pothos at least.

“It’s for a gift, I can’t have it for free!” he declared, obstinate. She relented.

“I’d better go back, or she’ll complain that I never help her around,” Ino said once the transactions were completed.

“Sorry I got you into trouble.”

“Don’t sweat it, it would have been the same with anyone.”

And wasn’t that a nice feeling. Naruto was all for being yelled at just like any other kids. Ino took a few steps before stopping in her track. She didn’t turn when she addressed him next.

“Come back another time, yeah?”

It was crazy for her to sound like he was going to say no.

“I will!”

She grinned at him and set off running, while Naruto took the direction of the weapon shop, where he found, with no surprise whatsoever, Tenten trying to teach Sasuke how to balance a kunai on the tip of his finger.

“More plants?” Sasuke accused when he saw Naruto’s purchase. The blonde didn’t say a thing but cast a very pointed look at Sasuke’s bag, barely holding two new Fuma Shuriken. Sasuke huffed and puffed, but made no further comment.

“That one is not for me anyway,” Naruto said, pointing at the pothos. “We’ll have to stop by on our way home.”

“A plant, really? That’s your gift?”

“It’s a good gift!”

“I knew I shouldn’t have let you decide.”

“Better than buy him a freaking knife or something!”

“A knife is a good gift.”

“It’s really not.”

Tenten laughed at them.

.

Iruka debated briefly with himself to just let whoever was at the door assume no one was home and go away. The day had been dedicated to the first-ever taijutsu lesson of the youngest Academy students, and he would need to sleep for a week to recover.

The thought was dismissed as soon as it came though, because even if it had 99% chance of being a neighbor needing some extra eggs or the young couple two doors down looking for their cat again, what if it was the 1% of someone in need and he turned them away? Kids knocking on his door at all hour of the day was a reality he couldn’t ignore.

So he dragged himself to the front door and opened it to reveal the face of one smiling Naruto and the one, more neutral, of Sasuke.

“Hey there! What brings you here? Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry to bother you, Iruka-sensei! We have something for you!" Naruto exclaimed. He was clutching a potted plant in his hands and thrust it toward a bewildered Iruka.

“It’s… for me?” he asked, having no choice but to receive the present.

“I noticed you didn’t have any in your apartment! It’s no good. This one is very sturdy though, it doesn’t need much attention! So it’s not a bothersome gift,” he said, glaring at Sasuke who huffed and looked away. Iruka chuckled.

“That’s… very thoughtful of you. You didn’t have to.”

“We wanted to do something nice for you! Because you’re always being nice to us,” Naruto said. He elbowed Sasuke in the ribs, urging him to say something too.

“Yeah,” was all he could get out of the other boy. Naruto rolled his eyes, but he was still smiling.

Iruka was tearing up a bit, he couldn’t deny it.

“I guess that’s all for us. Good night, sensei!”

Naruto turned around to leave – Sasuke bowed slightly with a mumbled “thank you for everything” before following on Naruto’s heels, leaving Iruka a little dumbfounded and a lot emotional.

He went back inside, his newly acquired plant in hand. Looking around, he decided to shuffle some of his books to set the pot on a shelf next to the window.

Really, he was never ever not answering his door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things have to go nice and smooth sometimes right. Next one we'll have Hinata and a mountain of Hyuuga feels so... Shino and Sakura and then we'll finally wrap up this mess... To be honest I have no idea how we ended up here. This was supposed to be quick. It was even supposed to be only team ten at first. I was thinking like, it's gonna be tricky cause there are things coming up in my other fic that I'll have to write here too and like, maybe I'll have to repeat myself or what... but it doesn't matter cause graduation won't happen before a billion years around here so... I have too much to say guys u.u
> 
> Thank you all for your support as always! It means a lot to me. Say hi on [tumblr](http://inrainprose.tumblr.com), bye!


	8. Hinata

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is safe to say that this chapter got away from me. I'm not really satisfied with it - somehow I simultaneously wanted to say less and more on the matter at hand. Also Hinata is very hard to write, she's on par with Itachi in the "you have so little personality I have no idea what do do with you" department. But, well. I hope you'll enjoy this still.
> 
> As I said on tumblr I deleted a finished version like a dumbass and had toe dit that chapter twice, but that's not the reason why this chapter took longer to get out than the others. The truth is quite simple - my other fic is taking over. It was bond to happen, I can't focus that hard on two projects at once. That doesn't mean I'm letting go of this one of course, but chapters will probably take a little more time to arrive from now on. Also cause I'm supposed to be studying but like, I can't even use it as a valid argument seeing how often I ditch studying for writing.

When she was bored and didn’t know what to do with herself – more or less all the time – Hinata had the weird but ultimately harmless habit of following people around the village.

She tailed them from a distance, from shop to shop, work to home, friends to family. They always seemed to have places to go, people to see, things to carry through. Things they had or wanted to do.

She couldn’t relate.

She watched them buy things for themselves or out of necessity, watched them laugh with their friends or quarrel with a shopkeeper. Full of life, emotion, purpose.

It would have been too strong a word to say that she envied them, but she did wonder what that was like. She wouldn’t have been able to explain why she did it. She didn't exactly enjoy it, but it soothed something inside of her to know that this was possible, that people got something out of life, that they felt things that compelled them to act, to be.

Hinata didn’t do anything productive with her own time. She just watched.

There were people she liked to follow more than others. Those who had the most emotions, there on the display, that she could catch even from afar, even if she had such a hard time deciphering them.

There was Ino, especially when she was running errands for her parents. She seemed to be acquainted with everyone around the village, always with a smile ready for all the people greeting her in the streets. She was also very good at getting discounts. There was miss Suzume, who taught the youngest Academy classes, or Kiba, when she could keep up with him running around with Akamaru.

But her favorites by far were no doubt Naruto and Neji.

Naruto was the best for this because he was always so extroverted. He expressed all his emotions openly and visibly, the good and the bad, without restrain or shame. Sometimes she was shook to her core by the magnitude of all he seemed to feel at all times. He was vocal about what he liked and disliked, always up to something, on the move. He knew where he was going, what he wanted. She watched him and he shone so bright, she felt like if she could catch just a little bit of it, she might feel like that too.

Neji was a different matter. First, because he would have been very mad if he ever spotted her, so she had to be extra careful with him. But most importantly, he was the only one she wished she could approach, but couldn’t. She had no intention or will to befriend any of the people whose life she enjoyed watching, or any of the kids at the Academy. People scared her too much, they were so unpredictable, so wild. They could go from calm to angry, from happy to sad at the blink of an eye, and she couldn’t deal with any of it. Plus they always talked so fast, thoughts running a mile a minute, and by the time she had thought of something to answer, they had already moved on to the next subject. It was exhausting.

But Neji… Neji, she used to talk to. Used to spend time with, used to be friend with even.

Now he turned away and stormed off when he saw her, and Hinata didn’t feel much of anything, but that hurt, she could feel it just fine.

So for lack of a better option, she followed him around the village.

She wasn’t in luck that day though, because he had left the Academy as soon as classes were done, as always, not saying goodbye to anyone, and Iruka had wanted to talk to her so she hadn’t been able to follow him. The teacher wanted to know if she was alright, if things were going fine with her, because he thought she looked a little down, a little out of it.

She hadn’t known what to say. She was always like this. Her life was always the same. Nothing ever changed.

She didn’t know what to do with herself, so she just wandered the village aimlessly, careful to stay away from the most crowded areas, both because it made her uncomfortable, and because she tried to avoid crossing path with other Hyuugas as much as possible. She didn’t go home because if she went home she would have to train. And if she didn’t go home to train, her father would ask what she had been doing, and she would have to lie and say she had been training. And she couldn’t do that if she met her aunt or one of her cousins at the fish market. She used to stay behind at the Academy, to help Iruka-sensei around and read books while he graded papers, but she couldn’t now that Hanabi was attending the Academy as well. She would report her to their father for sure.

So Hinata walked around. She didn’t know where she was going and she didn’t think about anything. She wished for time to stop in its track, wished it was all she ever had to do, walk around and not go home, but time kept running, it always did.

She took the way to the training grounds, hoping maybe she’d catch Neji or Naruto, or Shino who was calm and relaxing, or even Lee, who was fun to watch too. Always so energetic, so driven. Neji didn’t like him though, and Hinata didn’t want to give him another reason to despise her, so she stayed clear from the other boy.

It’s not like she would dare approach him anyway.

She expertly avoided the genin teams training with their instructor. The looming perspective of getting a team of her own was best not thought about.

She stumbled upon a scene that was as familiar as it was unexplainable.

Neji was practicing his taijutsu, eyes closed, as focused and tensed as, she imagined, he would be in a real fight. She enjoyed watching him immensely – it was always a beautiful sight. The little she actually managed to achieve in her own fighting came largely from observing him and emulating. She also followed his own warm up routine, both for its efficiency, and because it made her feel a little closer to him.

He was concentrating on his moves, not paying attention to anything else. And in particular, not paying attention to Naruto, making a very bad work of looking busy with his own training.

It wasn’t the first time, and she still didn’t understand it. They didn’t talk, didn’t even stood that close together. Neji ignored Naruto aggressively – kind of like he did with her – and Naruto was doing the exact opposite. Sometimes he tried to imitate Neji, sometimes he did his own thing. Sometimes Uchiha Sasuke was here, more often he wasn’t. They seldom exchanged any word. On occasion, Naruto would ask “what about today?” and without fail, Neij would sigh, and glare at him, and reply a firm “no”.

Naruto was still there the next time.

She didn’t know what that made her feel. Something, for sure. She would have given so much to have Naruto’s attention focused on her like that. What had Neji done that the other boy was pursuing him like this? What did he want? And why was Neji tolerating him? He could have gotten rid of the other boy if he really wanted to. Neji wasn’t shy about making himself clear on what he wanted, and on hurting other’s feelings if he had to.

She almost wanted to get in there. To say something. _Why do I have to do, that you’ll let me in too._

Not that she would ever dare to. Not that they would answer. Not that she didn’t know.

It would have been beyond mortifying that they caught her lurking and she resolved to leave and find something else to distract her mind until she had no choice but to go home.

But then, Neji started talking.

.

“Why did you cry?”

There. It was out there. He had said it. It had been eating away at him for days, had plagued his every thought, and he just had to let it out.

He had to know.

Naruto, proving a little more every day to be the most obnoxious person alive, rushed over toward Neji like he suddenly was allowed to crowd his space. Thankfully, he didn’t get too close.

“Hi!” he said. “I’m glad you decided to talk to me.”

Neji snarled, regretting it already.

“Why did you cry?” he asked again. That’s all he wanted to know. The rest was irrelevant.

“I’m sorry if it made you feel bad, I can’t really do anything about it, I…”

“Just tell me why!”

Naruto straightened up, startled out of his wandering thoughts. He stumbled over his answer, ill-at-ease under Neji’s wrathful glare. Neji wasn’t about to feel bad for him.

“I don’t… I’m not sure. I just… I was sad.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know! Because you were sad!”

“That makes no sense.”

“Your story is sad and it causes you pain. You were in pain, you were. It hurt. You were crying.”

“No I wasn’t.”

Naruto frowned, like he was the one who got to get confused by this nonsense

“Yeah. You were.”

Neji hadn’t cried a single tear since his father’s funeral – where they had had no body to bury. He had wanted to, at times, but he had always fought it mercilessly. Crying made everything worse. It was useless. It was for the weak-willed like Hinata, who couldn’t take anything without spilling emotions in return, who couldn’t endure a damn thing.

Neji didn’t cry. If he started, how would he stop?

“It’s just so unfair y’know, Sasuke explained it to me. It’s pretty terrible.”

“Why do you care anyway. It has nothing to do with you. Why do you…”

It was beyond him.

Naruto shrugged, uncomfortable. Didn’t he have an ounce of self-awareness? How could he be so clueless about his own feelings.

"I thought… I used to think… it was normal. To not like to see others suffer. To want to do something about it."

How had he been raised, to think such a thing.

“It’s normal to want to stop from hurting so… if I help it’ll go faster maybe. And I know it will be a very long time until I can help you, but until then I can still try something else.”

“How? Try what?”

“We could be friends.”

Neji spluttered, caught between a laugh and a curse. Naruto was very serious though.

“I felt so bad, before I got some, but things are better now. And it’s the same for Sasuke. Oh, he still feels bad you know, he’s still very sad, even if he pretends he isn’t. But he’s still better than he was. Everything is worse when you’re on your own. I think.”

At least he had an inkling that not everybody would share his naïve views.

“I don’t need any friends,” Neji spat. He had never had any and he didn’t plan on starting now. He shouldn’t even have been talking to that infuriating boy, he should have sent him away from the start, should have ignored him altogether.

The thing was, before that Naruto, Neji had never, ever heard someone say aloud that they thought what had happened to him was bad.

His father had resented his own brother and the house system, enough to warrant punishment even if it was in the secrecy of his own mind, and yet never aloud, or never in front of Neji anyway. His mother, his aunts and cousins, he saw it in their eyes sometimes, defiance, bitterness, but it was gone as soon as it came, and never voiced out. When he had come back home that night with his forehead still bleeding, disoriented by the pain and the confusion of what had just happened to him and why, they had comforted him by telling him what an honor it was, that he ought to be grateful. No one, in or out of the clan, had never seemed to think there was anything wrong with it – not wrong enough that it needed to change.

Even Hinata, when she had understood…

But that boy, that absolute moron who knew nothing about anything, he didn’t find it normal. He didn’t think they had to respect tradition, that it was fine because they had always done things this way, that the permanence of the clan was worth the sacrifices.

His first reaction had been to cry. To hurt. To say it wasn’t fair.

To offer to change it.

Maybe Neji had been crying that day after all. For so long now he had been trying to come to term with the fact that maybe he was the one in the wrong. Maybe he was just too weak-willed, too selfish to understand, to see the good in this. He had tried to be content with it like the other, to forget about his anger, to be a good Hyuuga.

Because if no one said anything, surely it had to mean it wasn’t such a bad thing, right?

“I don’t need any friends,” he repeated, wondering who he was trying the hardest to convince.

“Okay, okay, I get it. I know it’s not so easy being friends with me anyway for you people. But you still should…”

“What people?”

“Well, huh… Clan people? Not that, like, other kids want to my friends either… Well now they kind of do, at least some of them, but I don’t know, it’s not the same for the clans, like Sasuke y’know, his parents wouldn’t have wanted us to be friends but… well, they’re not here anymore so… but I get it. I still think you should find other friends. It doesn’t matter anyway. When I’m Hokage, I’ll still do it. I’ll give you what you want.”

“You do realize you sound insane, right?”

Judging by his puzzled expression, he didn’t.

“Why?”

“When I’m Hokage, when I’m Hokage… do you think it’s that simple?”

“No.”

Neji was taken aback by the seriousness, the intensity in the other boy’s firm answer and determined gaze. He wasn’t joking in the slightest.

“I never said it would be easy. Just that I’d do it.”

And Neji wanted to mock him for this, he wanted to tear his resolve down, to make him see, make him understand how foolish he was, how naïve.

He couldn’t though. He couldn’t, because no matter how foolish, no matter how naïve…  
No one, no one had ever taken Neji’s side before.

Now that he thought about it, he seemed to recall his uncle telling him and Hinata, but Hinata especially, to stay away from the blonde boy. There had been no explanation – Hyuuga Hiashi didn’t bother to justify his orders – and they had both complied. He had seen the girl trailing after Naruto from afar a few times, never too close – she was physically incapable of any act of rebellion anyway. He had thought nothing of it, hadn’t preoccupied himself with the boy any further.

He didn’t plan to befriend anyone.

But now…

“Alright.”

Naruto’s eyes widened likes saucers and Neji thought he was going to jump him. He went on quickly to dampen his enthusiasm.

“We’re not going to be friends. But you said you needed help with ninjutsu, didn’t you?”

Naruto nodded, having a hard time hiding his eagerness. Neji didn’t know what he was doing. But if Hinata had never rebelled in any way, what of him? For all that he raged, for all that he hated this, had he ever said anything? Naruto was the first one to voice it in any way – Neji had never done it in so many words, not aloud, and not even in his own mind. Because it was pointless – change was impossible, things would stay the same, always.

Expect…

It was insane. Foolish. It wasn’t even hope, it was nothing at all. Well, no, it wasn’t nothing. It was so small, so insignificant that it could just as well have been nothing, but it wasn’t. That idiotic boy’s dream and promises, it meant so very little, but it wasn’t _nothing_.

“Tear my clan system down. And I’ll train you till death.”

And Neji wasn’t ready for how good it would feel. Such a stupid, inconsequential act of rebellion, that single step toward a slightly different path, just a small deviation out of the road that was chosen for him.

The slightest rebellion against fate.

“I promise! I promise, I will. I’ll become stronger. I’ll be made Hokage. And I’ll give that to you. I swear.”

No doubt that nothing would come of it. The boy would forget, change his mind, or simply die before he was twenty, and that would be the end of it. But in the meantime, Neji would have an outlet to his rage, would be free, just a little, to not be okay with his fate.

And he would stick it to Hiashi.

Besides, Neji could admit it at least to himself, if he had trained so hard, all these years, it wasn’t for the good of the clan, wasn’t to honor their name and prepare to protect Hinata forever. He had trained because he had been told to, but maybe deep down, he still had that tiny hope that someday, it would give him a way out.

Neji ducked and launched himself toward Naruto, who didn’t react fast enough to avoid a palm hitting him square in the chest. He rolled away in the dirt.

“Let’s begin then,” Neji deadpanned, half-expecting protests. Naruto jumped back to his feet with the wildest grin and fell into a surprisingly kind of okay fighting position.

Neji felt his annoyance rise up. Was that _Lee’s_ standard guard?

“I’m going to train you to death.”

That lunatic had the gale to smile harder.

.  
Hinata didn’t remember going back home. She walked, or maybe she ran, all the way to the Hyuuga compound and to the main house. It was too early – her father took her to train. She didn’t remember that either. She probably failed from start to finish and she thought she could feel new bruises blooming all across her body, or maybe it was just old ones aching again. She couldn’t have said. For the first time in her life, she couldn’t have been bothered to be upset about it. She couldn’t even bother to be wary of her father.

All she could think about was Neji, and Naruto. Promises in the woods. And it made her feel.

It made her feel. Something. She wasn’t sure what it was, couldn’t identify it. But it stirred inside of her, tugged and pulled, and it echoed something else, something buried deep, that she was remembering only now.

Hadn’t she felt it before?

Neji had come to her one day with a bandage newly wrapped around his forehead, like his parents. Her father had explained to them that it meant they were now linked forever, by an indestructible bound no one could break, that their fate was to stand together. She had liked it. She was a lonely child and the idea of having someone that would sure stick by her side was appealing. It meant she would never be truly alone.

Neji had seemed okay with it too. They were already spending almost all their time together – it didn’t change much of anything. He was a little quieter, a little colder, but it was fine because he couldn’t turn away from her anyway.

Then she had been taken.

She had next to no memory of it. She thought there was a fear somewhere inside of her that dated back to that night and that had never really gone away. The fear of going abruptly from peace to war, from safety to pain and anguish. They had ripped her from her bed in the middle of the night – asleep and dreaming one second, taken away from her home the next.

She wondered if she was such a restless sleeper before that night.

She had been returned home, somehow. She didn’t know what had happened. But Neji’s father was gone.

And Neji was so cold after that. He did all he could to spend as little time with her as possible. There was so much hatred in his eyes sometimes, toward her father but toward her too, and all the Hyuuga whose forehead was free of a mark.

“Neji will get over it,” her father had said. “It’s his destiny to serve you. Don’t worry about it.”

She hated how she had liked to hear that once. She didn’t care about Neji serving her. She wanted him to be her friends.

She had confronted him only once, a few months later. She had asked him why, why he hated her so much, why they weren’t friends anymore. “You’re supposed to be with me,” she had said, so stupid, so ignorant. She had thought he was going to hit her, but he had refrained – she would later understand he was simply unable too. He would have, had he not been marked.

“Don’t worry, princess,” he had said, “I am devoted to you. I will always be.”

She didn’t think it was possible to say those words with such venom.

She had understood then that in the Hyuuga clan, fate wasn’t the powerful force that brought people together like in epic stories and tales, it wasn’t what guided the hero on their journey, wasn’t what always had them win in the end. Fate was a rope, a chain, and it bonded people together whether they liked it or not. She had understood the people around her, that she had known all her life, they weren’t her equals. They weren’t free.

Not that she was either, in the end. Neji and her, they had never had any word to say on the shape of their own future.

She had understood that it made a difference. When Neji said “we’ll always be together”, before his father’s death, it didn’t mean the same as when he said it after. It’s not that he didn’t want to.

He wanted to choose. Like she did. They just wanted to have a choice.

And she remembered, she remembered… It was so distant, faded now, but she had thought… she had thought if that makes him happy, if he’ll still be by my side even without it…

She had thought, “then we don’t need those seals”.

And she only realized now that she had always operated under the vague but persistent idea that one day they would have survived their youth and they could do whatever they wanted. And she would free him then. So that he could choose to stay. So that he would forgive her. So that _she_ would be the one to save _him_ , she would do something for him, at last, she would alleviate his pain.

In her heart, it was something of a given. But she had never said it openly. She had never even thought it properly. It just sat there at the bottom of her mind as she waited for the years to pass, for her time of being a helpless child to end, for her father to die.

And then she would, she would…

Naruto had said it so effortlessly. It was so easy for him. And Neji had believed him.  
She didn’t know but it made her feel… something. It was there. She could feel it.

She spent the next few days in a daze, plagued by a turmoil of feelings she didn’t understand and didn’t know how to deal with. She watched Naruto at school with the new knowledge that he was trying to befriend Neji, and that he believed their clan’s way was wrong and needed to be changed. She didn’t doubt he would do it if he could. Naruto could do anything.

It terrified her to be sidelined in that story of which she was a central piece. She hadn’t thought about it before, that by the time she was ready to do something, someone else would have already gotten there. And even without it, that maybe it would be too late. Neji would have waited too long. Or he wouldn’t even be there to see it. Or she wouldn’t be there to do it.

She knew how hope could sustain them. That’s all she had been running on for years – hope that things would eventually change, that she just had to bear through it all until it went away. It had never occurred to her that there were things she could do now. She had always been told there weren’t.

She found herself back where the boys trained without knowing what she was doing there exactly.

“Huh, hello, Hinata. What are you doing here?”

She was so confused, so lost, she didn’t even manage to look away, to avoid Naruto’s curious gaze. He looked increasingly puzzled as she stared at him, unblinking. She didn’t know what to do, what to say, but there had to be something.

“Y-You can’t break the Hyuuga’s curse,” was all she could get out. Confusion quickly morphed into discontentment on his face.

“Why not?”

“Because… because you can’t. That’s not…”

They failed to see Neji speeding toward them until he was in Hinata’s face. He grabbed her by the collar, almost lifting her off the ground.

“What did you say?”

He was enraged.

He threw her on the hard-packed dirt, as easily as if she’d been a lifeless doll. She didn’t register the pain, she only had one, terrifying thought – it was still her father that had control over his seal and if he sensed what was happening…

Neji was past caring. He took a step, two, menacing, and was only stopped by Naruto throwing himself in front of her.

“Stop it, stop! What are you doing?”

“Get out of my way!”

“No!”

Neji drew his fist back, ready to punch his way through the other boy. Hinata knew he wouldn’t hold his strength and she knew Naruto wouldn’t budge either.

Neji went for a hit. Hinata pushed Naruto out of the way. The fist caught her dead on the cheek, send her back to the ground. She coughed blood into the grass but it didn’t matter. She was used to taking hits. Used to the blood, used to the pain. She looked up toward him, just to see if…

He took a step back, and there it was. Barely a flicker, breaking through his angry expression.

Concern. Worry.

She still had it. His care, his love, it wasn’t gone, it was still there, somewhere.  
She could fight. She could, just like Naruto did, she could fight for it.

“He can’t. He can’t be the one to break it. The Hokage can’t get involved in the clans’ affairs,” she recited, having been told often enough. “It would anger them, and he would lose their support, so he can’t, he can’t.”

“What are you…”

“I-I-I’ll do it.”

Her voice broke on the last word – she was crying. Out of frustration, out of pain, out of the desperation. She was afraid he wouldn’t believe her, she was scared of his hatred, of losing him for good. She was scared of what she was saying, of showing such resolve, of taking that stand, where she had never voiced any opinion of her own.

Naruto, kneeling by her side, was on the verge of crying too. He didn’t try to comfort her or approach her, he didn’t say a word. She had to go on. She had to say it.

“I swear, Neji, I swear… I’ll train hard. I’ll get stronger. And I’ll be head of the clan one day and then… I don’t want you to-to stay because you have to. I don’t need, I don’t need that to trust you. I swear, I swear… And then you will be free, and if you want, you will… you will stay, but if you won’t… you will be free. I s-swear. I…”

She couldn’t make out his expression through her tears, but she tried to bear his gaze all the same. Just this once, she didn’t want to look down, didn’t want to look away. She needed him to believe her.

“Why?”

He sounded so incredulous, so lost. Why hadn’t she said it before.

“So you’ll be happy.”

He gasped. She didn’t want to lie, so she went on.

“So you’ll like me again.”

She would do anything for him to forgive her.

“What’s going on here?”

Three heads spun around to look at Sasuke who had just turned up into the clearing.

It jolted them out of the intense scene, as Naruto put an arm around her shoulders while Sasuke rounded Neji with a suspicious glare to join them.

“What did you do?” he accused, arms crossed. Hinata thought Neji was going to hit him too, but her cousin was at the end of his rope, it seemed. He let out a curse he would certainly never have uttered at home, and he was gone.

“Well, that could have gone better,” Naruto said, quite unhelpfully. He was rubbing gentle circles on her back and it felt like there were too many emotions fighting to be heard in her head, she couldn’t decide which one to give in to. He usually didn’t look like he wanted to approach her, but it seemed he was willing to make an exception.

“Do I need to beat his ass?” Sasuke asked, looking pissed. Naruto chuckled.

“Could you even?”

Sasuke huffed and mumbled something like “I could if I had to” that had Naruto chuckle again, before the blonde boy turned the full weight of his attention back on her.

“Are you alright?”

She couldn’t speak anymore. She nodded.

“That was badass, Hinata!”

It was hard to look at him, his bright smile and earnest praise. She was hyper-aware of their proximity now that she was coming down from her high a bit, and she didn't know how she was going to breathe in the next few minutes.

“Getting punched is not badass, moron,” Sasuke chided before handing her a handkerchief for her bleeding mouth.

“Hmmm, I don’t know.”

“It wasn’t an opinion, it was a fact.”

Hinata started crying again.

She couldn’t help it, it was just too much. She was scared and overwhelmed. It had been so long since she had been in the dark about what was waiting for her in the future. All days were supposed to be the same, nothing ever changed. But she had toppled that, rocked the boat, the world had shifted on its axis. What was Neji going to do? Was he going to report her to her father for her words? Would he be even angrier now? There was also the possibility that he would act as if nothing had happened, nothing had changed, and somehow it was the worst possibility. She felt like dying. Going through this couldn’t be for nothing.

She could vaguely hear the two boys panic and argue about what to do with her. It was strangely comforting. She was used to seeing her tears ignored, or mocked, or criticized. But they were treating it like it was a great tragedy.

“We need to find girls!” Naruto exclaimed with the voice of someone relieved to have found a solution to his problem – dumping it on someone else.

“What girls?”

“I don’t know. Girls are better at comforting girls than boys are, aren’t they? Besides, Hinata’s scared of me! I can’t be the one to comfort her.”

The made her cringe and she thought about protesting, but her voice was still gone and she was too tired to form words. She still managed to get on her feet at their urging, and they walked back to the village’s streets. Nothing was different out there, the people were the same, and it was so weird because Hinata would have thought the world was forever changed, but the truth was nothing had happened, and no one would care.

She was scared they would try to take her home, but soon enough she realized they were heading to Ino’s flower shop. She was still crying.

Ino was watering the plants on display outside the shop while chatting up with Sakura, who spotted them first.

“What happened? What did you do!”

“Nothing! It wasn’t us heh!”

Sakura squinted at Naruto, suspicious, but Hinata managed a small nod when the girl looked at her, and she let it go.

“You’ll take care of her right? You won’t leave her alone,” he asked, anxious, as Hinata went willingly into Sakura’s embrace while Ino ran a gentle hand through her hair. The two girls exchanged a long look above Hinata’s head, before nodding.

"We got this," she said, serious. The boys exhaled a relieved sigh.

“Alright. We’ll leave you to it then. It’s… It’s gonna be fine, Hinata,” Naruto said awkwardly, rubbing at the back of his head. “I’m sure Neji’ll come round, yeah?”

Hinata wasn’t. But she trusted him, so she nodded, hoping he was right.

.  
“Family is… very complicated, right?”

“Hm.”  
.

“Do you want some tea?”

“I… Thanks. I… why? Why are you… Y-you don’t, I mean...”

“Ah, well, you see…”

“It’s because of Naruto. He’s always spewing nonsense about friendship and love and how we’re supposed to take care of each other and…”

“You know, it’s just… He might be onto something. So, tea?”

.

At this point, all Hinata could do was let herself be carried with the flow, because she was completely out of her depth.

She slept at Ino’s place with Sakura. Ino’s mother went to the Hyuuga compound and said something convincing to her father, and Hinata slept at their place. They talked about things that weren’t why she had been bawling her eyes out, and it was nice. She fell asleep stupidly fast, even if she wanted nothing more than to stay awake a little while longer, to listen to Ino and Sakura argue about the best moment of the day to apply nail polish, and which of the boys in their class would be on board with it.

They went to the Academy together the next day, but the girls didn’t just leave her at the gate like she thought they would. They sat her between them in class, and then they took her with them to eat lunch on the roof. They seemed unfazed by Hinata’s silence, but they didn’t act like she wasn’t there either – they were constantly touching her, asking her for approval, usually to win an argument against one another.  
Hinata had no idea what was going on.

Sasuke came to ask how she was during recess in the afternoon, while Naruto spied on them without discretion from the other side of the room. “He thinks you’re scared of him,” he said, reproachful, but Ino glared hard at him, and he let it go, turning away to report back to Naruto.

At the end of the day, the girls took her with them to drink a smoothie and buy hairpins at the cheap jewel store. And then, they went to the playground near the Academy.

Naruto was there, with Sasuke of course, but there was also Shikamaru and Choji, Kiba with Akamaru, and even Shino sitting on a bench nearby. Naruto greeted them with a smile. Kiba pouted.

“What d’ya want?” he snarled.

“Well, isn’t it time for a rematch?” Ino answered, sweet as honey. “Or are you scared we’ll beat you again.”

“You didn’t beat us! You cheated!”

“Using your brain in a fight isn’t cheating you caveman!”

“What d’you say?”

Shikamaru's long, drawn-out sigh interrupted the shouting match.

“There’s too few of you to do boys versus girls anyway.”

“I’ll be a girl!” Naruto shot back immediately, joining his hands together in a dog seal. Sasuke was on him before he could utter a word.

“I told you to stop with that jutsu!”

"What? Why? I promise I'll manage to get clothes on this time!"

“I don’t trust that.”

“Naruto can be with the girls,” Ino cut in, ready for a fight and eager to begin. “’Cause he’s nicer than all of you.”

Naruto stuck his tongue at his friends and went to stand by the blonde girl.

“Urg, fine,” Kiba groaned. “Shino, are you arbitrating?”

“Am I?”

“Thanks man. Great, four against four then. We’ll kick your ass.”

“Wait, four?” Sasuke exclaimed, displeased. Hinata shared the sentiment.

“Well, since your roommate betrayed us to the girl squad, we’re short one member if you don’t join, pretty boy.”

“I don’t want to play your stupid game!”

“Is that ‘cause you don’t know the rule, or just ‘cause you suck at it?”

“I’ll show you who sucks!”

“Great! That’s settled then.”

Sasuke grumbled and mumbled but relented and went to stand by Kiba’s side, throwing nasty looks at the boy who just grinned, mischievous.

Hinata grabbed at Sakura’s dress, trying to get her attention without alerting the others.

“We’re playing Ninjas vs Samurai,” the girl said with a smile. “Don’t worry, you can stay back if you want to. You’ll be our eyes!”

“How is that not cheating?” Kiba exclaimed.

“You have the Sharingan! Stop being a sore loser!”

“We haven’t lost yet!”

“Yeah, yet!”

Hinata was completely lost.

But she didn’t feel the urge to bolt, like she usually did in that kind of situation. She didn’t feel threatened by those people – there was no danger here. Sakura and Ino would look after her, Naruto too. She knew all of them. They weren’t a threat.

“Are you in, then, Hinata?” Sakura asked still, to be sure. Hinata was scared out of her mind, but for once, she didn’t want to back.

She nodded decisively.

The girls lost when Ino was ambushed by Kiba and Akamaru and used as hostage for the Samurais’ surrender. Neither Sakura nor Naruto was on board for sacrificing one their one, so they threw their weapons down and went willingly. Kiba looked very smug, up until Ino slipped out of his grip and kicked him in the stomach. They had already lost, but it made her laugh and made him curse, so it was fine.

Hinata was feeling something again. It was very different from was had plagued her the previous days. It was warm and cool at the same time, not unlike what she felt when she watched Naruto laugh from afar. Expect this time it wasn’t his joy she was feeling.

It was her own.

“You can arbitrate with Shino or Sasuke next time if you want,” Ino said as she walked her back to her home. Hinata shook her head.

“It’s fine. It was…”

She looked for the right word.

“It was fun.”

She hoped they would do it again.

This feeling lasted about five seconds into the Hyuuga compound, because Neji was just one step behind her, coming back from his own wanderings, and they stumbled into her father right away.

“What were you doing, Hinata?”

There was seldom any difference between her usual stuttering and the one that showed up when she was trying to lie. To them, anyway. To her it was plain as day, and it meant she could never go through with it. Wouldn’t her father be even more mad is she lied, on top of things? Then again, past a certain point, more or less didn’t make that much of a difference.

She didn’t want to spend the whole evening at the dojo.

However, she didn’t have time to utter a single word. Because Neji stepped in.

“Sorry we’re late, uncle. We were at the training ground.”

Neji had no problem with lying.

Her father’s eyes widened and he looked back and forth between the two of them, but them being anywhere together at the same time was probably as absurd as the possibility of Neji covering for her in his mind, so he simply let it go.

“Get some dinner and go to bed,” he told Hinata, before disappearing back into the main house.

Hinata stayed rooted to the spot as Neji rounded her to go to the bunke’s housing. She tried to call after him, but nothing came out of her dry throat.

.

She had planned to follow Sakura and Ino around again, like she had done these past few days, but Neji was waiting for her by the Academy gate when they walked out.

Both girls instinctively got closer to her, like a shield. She had managed to explain to them the bare bone of her relationship with Neji, and she didn’t know what they had understood exactly, but they didn’t seem to like it very much.

Neji wasn’t alone though. Naruto popped out from behind him with a grin. Sasuke was there too.

“Hinata! Come train with us!”

She cast an incredulous look at Neji who surely couldn’t be on board with that idea. Her two friends looked equally suspicious, but Hinata saw Ino and Sasuke have a hushed, half silent conversation in his back, and the girl nodded decisively.  
“Do you want to go?” she asked Hinata. She could do this thing where she managed to take up the whole of Hinata’s attention, managed to make her forget there was anyone else around them, that other people were watching and listening. It made it easier to talk to her, since they were the only two people in the whole world then.

Training was about her least favorite thing to do in the world, but since being in Neji and Naruto’s proximity ranked among the best, she decided to go. Besides, she had trained a little with Sakura and Ino in the past few days, and it had been… surprisingly nice. There had been no yelling, no searing glares and heavy sighs of disappointment, no repeating the same move on her over and over again even if she clearly wasn’t able to counter it.

So, nice. Strange, but nice.

She managed to convince the two girls to leave her to it. She would have rather they came, actually, but she wasn’t sure Neji would stand for it, and the last thing she wanted was him changing his mind. She would be fine with Naruto and Sasuke around. The girls agreed not to come, but not without leveling threatening glares at Neji. It was uncommon enough that it made him a bit uneasy – Neji was used to a certain kind of deference at the Academy.

The girls didn’t care much for who he was though, or what he could do. It settled a warm weight in Hinata’s core.

Naruto was excited, Sasuke looked like he was tagging along against his will. Neji too, for that matter, but still, they all followed the blonde to the same training ground, out there between the trees. Hinata was a bit lost, wondering what to expect, what they would do. She didn’t feel like fighting, especially Neji. He could be brutal, more so if it was against her.

But Neji didn’t settle to face her. Naruto came to stand in front of them, in a standard position looking like a bastard mix between Lee’s and Neji’s. Her cousin hissed, displeased, but made no comment.

“Look at him,” he said, voice harsh. She did, puzzled. He rolled his eyes, raised an eyebrow, expression full of disdain. Oh.

“Byakugan!”

If there was on single thing Hinata managed to do right, it was using the analytical prowess of her clan’s Dojutsu. But her training didn’t exactly focus on the theoretical, so who cared.

“What do you see?”

She focused on the blonde boy, fighting off a blush. It was easier to look at him that way, shining from the inside and barely recognizable, than it would have been staring at his smiling face. She tried to concentrate.

“Well?”

“His… His chakra system is… overwhelmed?”

“It just had a much higher capacity than what you usually see.”

“I’ve never… never seen that much. And there’s…”

There was something right in the middle, that looked both like a convergence point and a pit that stood apart from the rest of the chakra system. She felt the urge to look away from it.

“Forget about it for now, that one’s a mystery,” Neji said, reluctant. It had to be a hard thing to admit, that he didn’t know what it was. Sasuke scoffed from where he was sitting on the grass a few meters away, making a bad job at meditating if he was that attuned to their conversation. Neji glared at him.

“Naruto. Start on a jutsu. Any one,” Neji ordered. Naruto didn’t take offense at his biting tone, eagerly complying.

She had to squint her eyes at the onslaught of light. It was messy and all over the place, chakra rushing around without focus or purpose, spilling out before it could reach its intended destination. Ironically, the result was Naruto having to do with very little, while his actual problem was having too much.

“He can’t control it all,” she said. She was fascinated, and forgot to be nervous, forgot the utter awkwardness of this situation.

“That’s because he’s terrible at chakra control,” Neji deadpanned, “and,” he said forcefully, cutting Naruto’s protest, “because no can teach how to handle so much.”

“Hence your brilliant idea,” Sasuke muttered from the side. Neji rolled his eyes aggravated.

“You have a better one maybe?”

Sasuke huffed, but didn’t retort.

"Hence, he needs to learn to control smaller amounts of it first. Hinata," he called, bringing her rather abruptly back to the reality of what was happening – him talking to her, Naruto looking at her, her engaging into shinobi training with them willingly. She felt a little dizzy.

"Shut down his tenketsu."

“Wh-what?”

“It’s barbaric, but it works,” Neji explained with a grimace of distaste, clearly offended by that lack of refinement. “Go off, no matter how much you close, he’ll still struggle.”

“You are very mean, Neji,” Naruto accused without looking offended in the slightest.

“It will be good training for you too,” Neji added, ignoring her. Come on.”

Hinata’s brain was busy short-circuiting and she didn’t answer or move. She didn’t understand what was happening. Was that it, was he willing to… train her? She couldn’t hit Naruto! What if she failed? She didn’t want him to mock her, she didn’t want Neji to be mad. She couldn’t do this. What was she even doing here?

“I-I-I… I can’t…”

“Was it a lie then?”

Neji wasn’t looking at her. His Byakugan was a beacon through her own, his expression undecipherable in its light.

“Didn’t you say you wanted to get stronger?”

She had. She had said that. She was out of her mind and very confused, but it was the truth. Hanabi was already better than her in every way and they would give the clan to her if Hinata didn’t do anything. She couldn’t let that happen. She would have been content with shedding her responsibility as the heir, with leaving the clan altogether, but if she could, Neji couldn’t, and she wouldn’t leave her behind. As long as he didn’t have a choice, she didn’t either.

“I do. I do.”

“Then prove it.”

“Don’t worry Hinata! I’m used to it by now!” Naruto said with a laugh. His laugh always put her at ease. She tried to relax.

“He’s not going to block in any way, so focus on precision,” Neji instructed, with an underlying message of “he’s literally a motionless target so don’t mess that up”.

She willed herself to calm down, to focus. She studied the other boy – his overload of chakra made his tenketsu harder to see, but Hinata had very good eyes.  
She could do it.

“Gentle fist, sixteen points.”

.  
“I’m so sorry!”

“It’s fine, Hinata, it’s fine!”

“I’m sorry!”

She didn’t know what to do with herself as Naruto laid star spread on the grass, trying to catch his breath. Sasuke was poking at his abused body, asking “does it hurt? Does it hurt?”, headless to Naruto’s whiny protests.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, sniffling. She hadn’t meant to hurt him for real, but it was the first time she used the Gentle Fist against someone that wasn’t her father or another instructor from the Hyuuga clan. Not only did adults had way more resistance than children, it also seemed that the Hyuuga training, aimed at reinforcing their chakra pathway for better chakra control, had the added effect of making their chakra points harder to close.

She was supposed to only put some pressure on Naruto’s, to slow down his chakra flow – she had shut the points she had touched completely, as well as almost stabbed him with her fingers.

“Don’t apologize. He shouldn’t be so soft,” Sasuke said, poking at Naruto again.

“Stop that!”

“If you had more muscle mass…”

“I’m more build than you!”

She couldn’t look any of them in the eyes, but she still peeked at Naruto’s body, just to see if she had hit all the points she meant to hit at least. She counted sixteen – it wasn’t often that she managed the Eight Trigrams in its entirety. Her all-time high was barely twenty.

But his chakra flow had come to a standstill, which defeated the purpose of the exercise entirely.

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

By her side, Neji sighed, long-suffering.

“On you feet Naruto, come on.”

She thought the blonde would protest, but he was up in an instant. Neji raised his palms.

“Hey, now that’s not…”

Naruto didn’t have time to finish his sentence that Neji was hitting dead on his closed tenketsu. They were harder to open than to close, and it was dangerous too – Neji had to prick them with his own chakra to restore the chakra points, and it could be catastrophic if too much was sent into the other’s body. One didn’t do good with foreign chakra inside them, as a rule.

Neji made quick work of it as if it was the easiest thing in the world.

“I hate it when you do that,” Naruto complained, rubbing at the sore spots all over his body. Neji didn’t bother to answer that.

“Again.”

Hinata’s eyes widened. Surely she couldn’t do that again to the other boy. They had been lucky she hadn’t inflicted real damages, and closing and opening tenketsu was never a pleasant experience. 

“I-I-I’m not sure…”

“Come on, come on, I’m sure you’ll make it this time!”

Wasn’t this supposed to be about him? He was the one who needed help with his training, not her, and she wasn’t helping at all.

“But…”

“Come on, you have to try again if you want to get better!”

“If you don’t want to hurt him,” Sasuke added, “don’t mess up.”

His disinterested tone was betrayed by the way he was glaring at her, discontented. He’d gotten into fights at school over less – no one was allowed to harm Naruto on his watch.

He was right. She had to do better.

“A-alright. Alright.”

So they tried again, and again. Neji usually tampered with more than sixteen points, and so Naruto had the hardest time doing basic chakra molding he had the hang of when most of his chakra was basically on lockdown. He still tried though, tried and cursed and sweat, but he kept going, tireless and insatiable. The two Hyuuga were the ones to tire out first – Sasuke didn’t count, because he was reading _Greatest battles of the shinobi world_ under a tree.

The sun was starting to set when they decided to call it a day.

“Again, tomorrow,” Neji said to Naruto as he gathered his stuff.

“We can’t tomorrow, we’re training with Lee… Oh, he could come!”

Naruto took grimaced at Neji’s sour expression.

“Alright, alright, he won’t… you’re such a killjoy, Neji. Another day then? Tomorrow you can just train the two of you,” he said, pointing at Hinata and Neji in turn. She held her breath, waiting for an answer.

Neji just hummed, but it was enough. It wasn’t a no.

They walked the way back to the Hyuuga compound in heavy silence. She was aware there were things to be said, explanations to be given. She said nothing. When they crossed the gate, he faced her but didn’t cross her gaze and let out a tight "you did well today" that lit a lantern in her mind, before turning away.

She felt the urge to do something then, anything, just to acknowledge in some way that something had indeed happened, that she did feel, did think, even if she couldn’t say it.

Out of idea and out of words, she took a few quick steps forward and almost crashed in his back. She gripped at the fabric of his shirt and buried her face between his shoulders, her grasp too tight with how scared she was he would get away, shrug her off.

He didn’t move a muscle. She wasn’t sure he was breathing.

For a long moment they stayed like this, standing in the courtyard, closer than they had been in years, and it felt like life returning, like the first gulp of hair after too long underwater. She inhaled deeply, comforted by his scent, his proximity, only now able to admit to herself how badly she was missing him, how deep his absence cut.

“I’m-I’m sorry,” she whispered, not sure he could even hear her.

She would do anything, anything not to lose him again.

“Just… don’t betray me,” he said after a long while, and she had a feeling he meant to sound threatening, scary, but he only came off vulnerable. Pleading.

Scared.

“I won’t. I won’t.”

Never. Never again. He would be free. They would both.

“I’m sorry too, Hinata.”

She couldn’t be expected no to burst into tears.

.

Since Naruto was spectacularly oblivious of anything that didn’t happen right in front of his nose, it was up to Sasuke to have enough situational awareness for both of them. It never failed to despair him how Naruto got caught off guard every freaking time by someone Sasuke had been watching approach for the past ten minutes.

Case in point – Sakura, Ino and Hinata had been whispering between themselves while casting indiscreet looks toward the blond for the better part of lunch break, and still when Hinata finally got convinced to do whatever it was the girls wanted her to do, Naruto looked as surprised as if the girl was coming back from the dead.

A fine Hokage that dumbass would make.

“Hi, Hinata? How are you? Did you want something?”

It wasn’t so obvious to see, but Naruto made an effort to be less obtrusive around the girl. Sasuke didn’t like it. For all that he complained about how he was loud and too energetic at times, Sasuke certainly didn’t want him to change

“I-I-I wanted to tell you something.”

“Huh, okay. What is it?”

Could he even relate to the difficulty of speaking his mind? Unlikely.

“I’m-I’m not. I don’t. I’m… not scared. Of you.”

“You’re not?”

She shook her head energetically and bolted, running back toward the girls and not doing a stellar job at getting her point across.

“What’s wrong with her then?” Naruto asked, puzzled.

“What do I know,” Sasuke deadpanned. It didn’t make sense to him either. Girls were just weird like that, probably.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whaaat. Honestly, I don't know what happened here. It is something of a recurring theme of mind that they're all in a lot pain, like, generally speaking. I like Hinata, like I like them all, but I admit I went on a limb here. Also just to be clear I don't know if it needs to be said but, nothing romantic is happening between Neji and her. This is purely cousin-slash-sibling relationship dynamics. I always felt robbed that we didn't get to see more of it? I have a thing for family relationships, especially siblings, my ultimate jam. So. Yeah. I don't have much more of an explanation for this. Moving on!


	9. Shino

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fell asleep before posting again. I'm getting old.  
> Everty time I reached the end of a chapter on the first draft, I'm like "well the length is half decent" but when I read it again for editing it feels like it lasts three minutes tops and nothing happens x) Well, we continue with more kids fluff... And the return of Adult Time! Yay! (It occurs to me writing this that "adult time" could be read very differently than what I have in mind... It means there are adults ok. They are talking. No steam in this house).

Naruto took a deep, steadying breath, readjusted his goggles on his forehead, and took two steps toward Shino, before chickening out and taking three more back.

It shouldn’t have been so hard. He just had to walk up to the other boy’s table and ask him, nice and polite, if it was possible to obtain some of his magical plant-protector bugs. Easy.

And yet lunch break was coming to an end and Naruto had barely crossed half the classroom. He had no idea why he was hesitating like this. He didn’t know Shino very well but he knew at least that the other boy was agreeable if not very sociable, and he was reasonably certain Shino wouldn’t turn him away harshly.

But Shino was also cool and mysterious and Naruto felt weird approaching him like this out of the blue. Besides, he didn’t like being friendly just because he needed something from people. He regretted not having befriended the other boy sooner – then, this would have only been a formality. Shino hung out with them from time to time because he was friend with Kiba, but Naruto had never exchanged more than three words with him. And here he was now, needing favors. Wouldn’t Shino find that rude?

He crossed Ino’s judging glare for the tenth time, and she made a complicated move with her head and eyebrows to convey, he presumed, that he better move his ass and do this now or she would do it for him, and she would talk very loud so that the whole class would hear. Naruto didn’t want that.

He took a deep breath, again, readjusted his goggles, _again_ , and this time, resolute, he marched toward Shino, sitting alone at his table.

“Hi, Shino, sorry to bother, I was…”

Naruto trailed off.

He hadn’t expected Shino to be so sad.

The boy had looked up from his notebook to probably stare at Naruto – it was hard to tell with the sunglasses. His half-hidden face betrayed nothing of his emotions, and yet Naruto was sure of it.

“What is it that you wanted, Naruto?” he asked after a while in his measured voice. Frankly, Naruto had forgotten.

“Are you alright? You look sad.”

“Do I?”

Well, he didn’t, not really.

“It’s… just an impression, I guess. I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“I don’t mean to… to pry. But… Do you want to talk about it?”

It was a bit unnerving, how little could be read of his face, but Naruto had the impression that maybe the other boy wanted to say yes.

“Is that why you came over here?”

“It can wait,” Naruto answered easily, sliding onto the bench next to Shino. The boy didn’t complain – Naruto took it as an encouragement.

“It’s nothing of great import. One of our hives got sick with an unknown disease, and most of them didn’t survive. I was fond of them. So I imagine I am, indeed, sad.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

Shino shrugged, seemingly done with the topic. Naruto hoped he was able to help a little. He didn’t like it when people were sad.

“So tell me now what is it that you wanted to tell me,” Shino said, bringing Naruto back to his original concerns.

“Oh! Yeah! Well it’s Ino, I went to her shop the other day because I needed something against the parasites in my plant, and she said to maybe ask you for help? Because her clan uses your clan’s bugs for that and she said it was the best. I’m… sorry if it’s a bit weird.”

“Why would that be weird?”

“Well we don’t talk all that much, so…”

“We’re talking now.”

It was impossible to tell if he was joking or serious, which made it funny either way.

“You’re right! We are!”

It made him really happy.

“We usually don’t just hand these over to people,” Shino said. Naruto was kind of expecting it. He gave a shrug, to convey something like “well, what can we do?”. He would just have to try some more basic products. It couldn’t be so bad.

Shino was staring at him, and the sunglasses made it look like he wasn’t blinking at all. Naruto resisted the urge to squirm.

“It’s okay, y’know, it’s…”

“I guess I could arrange something,” Shino cut. “If it’s for a friend.”

“You think we’re friends?” Naruto asked, dumbfounded.

“You don’t?”

“No, no, I do, I do! If you do, I do!”

“I do indeed.”

“Great! That’s… that’s great.”

Naruto shut his mouth then, a little embarrassed by his excitement while Shino stayed cool and collected. He could feel his cheeks redden and had to look away to hide a stupid, pleased smile. It was just so nice, to hear it said so bluntly, to have it be so simple and straightforward.

“I will ask permission, and I will let you know,” Shino added, to put an end to the conversation as Iruka entered the room for their next lesson. Naruto nodded eagerly and bolted to join back his own seat next to Sasuke.

He kept beaming for the rest of the day.

.

“Mom, there’s someone who’s here to see you,” Hana said from the kitchen door. Tsume was having tea with Shibi, as they often did, and she wasn’t in the mood to entertain a visitor.

“Who is it?” she asked her daughter, set on sending them away if their request could wait. Hana hesitated, only for a moment, but it was enough to put Tsume on her guards.

“Hana?”

“It’s Hyuuga Hiashi.

Lightning fast, Shibi snatched her cup from her hand before she could drop it on the table. They exchanged a loaded look before Shibi nodded imperceptibly.

“Show him in, Hana, please,” Tsume said. Her girl complied hastily, aware of the sudden tension that had dropped on the room. Shibi put his sunglasses back on, a clear sign that this wasn’t a casual encounter anymore. She couldn’t fault him.

It had been maybe five years since either of them had spoken to Hiashi. At least outside of a formal, clan head to clan head context. She had very high doubts that this was a social visit, and yet she couldn’t help but hope.

Even if she had been the one to pull away from him.

“Hello, Hiashi,” she said when he entered the kitchen, “it’s good to see you.”

Despite everything, it was. She would probably never stop missing his friendship.

“Likewise,” he said curtly, and really, it was almost considerate of him to so promptly remind her why she also didn’t miss him at all sometimes.

“Was there something you wanted?”

“Yes.” At least he had the decency not to pretend otherwise. “Actually, it’s good that you’re here, Shibi. It concerns both of you.”

“We’re listening,” Tsume said, when it became clear Shibi wouldn’t say a word. There was a time when she had felt guilty about the rift between the two men, thinking maybe she was at fault, that she had influenced Shibi in some way. But he had made his choices all on his own. As had Hiashi.

“It has come to my attention that both Neji and Hinata have been making some… new friends, recently. And I believe your children have too.”

“Oh really? Well, Kiba at least is very sociable, so I don’t really see what you mean,” she said casually. Hiashi clicked his tongue, knowing she was shitting him – she knew very well what he was talking about. Just because her clan was marginalized didn’t mean she wasn’t aware of what happened in her village.

Mostly because Kiba was a gossip mill.

“Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke have taken to spend a lot of time together, and with the other children too.”

“I’m aware.”

“And were you aware that they actually lived together?”

“Yes.”

Well, she was now. She hadn’t been sure, had only pieced it out from Kiba’s recollection, since he hadn't connected the dots himself, or had just omitted to mention them. 

Beside, Tsume was good friend with Akimichi Choza.

“And none of that bothers you?”

“The kids’ social life is not a main concern of mine, no.”

She wouldn’t let him get away with his subtext bullshit. If he had accusations, if he had grievances, he would have to spell them out. He used to be well aware of that – she didn’t deal in implications, she never had.

“So you won’t do anything about it?” he asked, accusing. Oh, how she hated that tone, that condescendence. It didn’t bother her, when they were young, because it was never directed toward her. They were on top of the world and looked down together on the rest of it, and she liked to stand on equal ground with her two friends, like that their bond went beyond the confines of their clan and background.

How did he see her now, she wondered? He probably thought he had grown up while she stayed the same bratty kid. In any case, he certainly didn’t see them as equals anymore, if he could talk to her like this.

Her mouth stretched into a smirk, revealing her sharp teeth, and he lost a bit of his assurance.

“You know what? I will. KIBA!”

The sudden, thunderous call made both men jump, to her great amusement. They listened to the thumping footsteps of Kiba running the corridor and down the stairs to answer his mother’s call.

“Yes mom?” he asked, a little out of breath. “Oh, hello”, he added when he spotted Hiashi, bowing hastily and without grace.

“Hello, Kiba.”

“Kiba, Hiashi here just gave me a great idea. Why don’t you invite your friends over this weekend? They could even sleep here. Make it a party.”

The boy’s eyes widened like saucers at the odd but exciting proposition.

“Really? I could? Why?”

“I don’t know… birthday?”

“My birthday was two months ago!” he laughed, delighted, as usual, by her antics.

“But you didn’t celebrate it with them.”

“Are you serious? I can invite people? How many?”

“Well, let’s see… There’s Shino, right?” she said with a quick glance at Shibi for confirmation. He gave it readily. “Right, Shino, Shikamaru and Choji, and, ah, Naruto and Sasuke maybe?”

The boy pulled a face at that.

“Maybe Sasuke won’t want to come. If he doesn’t come Naruto won’t either!”

“Ask them anyway. It would be fun, wouldn’t it?”

He was obviously at a loss as to where this was coming from, but he certainly wasn’t about to question her motives. He nodded eagerly.

“I’ll go ask right away!”

"Your homework is done?"

“Almost! I‘ll finish up when I come back, I swear!”

“Alright, alright,” she laughed. “Off you go!”

Kiba bolted without further ado, leaving the three adults alone in a silence that was all the more jarring contrasted with his lively presence. Hiashi looked on the verge of popping a blood vessel.

“Aren’t you tired of being irresponsible just to rile me up?”

“Hiashi.”

He frowned at her sudden serious tone, and even more when she got up and walked up to him, getting in his face with zero regards for his discomfort.

"You made clear a long time ago, that we weren't to interfere in any way in the way you raise your kids. So here I am, giving back the courtesy. Naruto and Sasuke are sweet, nice kids whose life sucks right now, and I’ll be damned if I be the one to pile up on that. And _you’ll be fucking sorry_ if you do. Don’t mess up with the kids, Hiashi. I’m serious.”

He held her gaze for a while, assessing, maybe, how serious she was indeed. It was hard to know where the Hyuuga eyes focused as a rule, but Tsume had had years of experience getting acquainted with these particular eyes, and they held no secret to her.

Right now, the anger and disdain they hosted were plain as day.

When he finally looked away, it was to glance briefly at Shibi. Whatever he found there, it wasn’t support, because he let out a sigh and turned away, done with that conversation. She wasn’t though.

“Hiashi!”

He stopped a few steps away from the front door, but didn’t turn back.

“I saw Hinata and Neji at the market the other day. Together. He was holding her hand, to get her through the crowd. Maybe you should reflect on that.”

He barely turned his head.

“Don’t tell me how to raise my kids.”

The next moment, he was out of the door.

It slammed loudly into the peaceful house, grating a little more on her nerves.

“That fucking little...”

Years of trying not to curse too much around the kids made her bit back her words, but she meant them all the same. She stomped back into the kitchen and rummaged through her cupboard until she found an edible pack of cookies. She ripped it open and started to devour them angrily, destroying the poor things and getting crumbs everywhere. She always craved food when her emotions were running high – maybe that’s why Choza and her got along so well.

“That… fucking… freaking... _prick_ …” she ranted in between bites. At her side, Shibi stayed silent, waiting out until she would calm down a bit. He was used to it. They were good friends.

They used to be good friend with Hiashi too.

More than friends, even. They were teammates, paired up together for their first genin team, and these weren’t bonds that were so easily dismissed. They had suffered the chunin exam together, and they had stayed close afterward, sent along on missions because they made a damn fine team, seeing each other through their relationships, breakups, marriage and kids. 

But then, Hiashi had taken up the mantle of head of the Hyuuga clan.

As stupid teenagers, they had vowed to each other that they would never let such stupid things as clan rivalry and status get in the way of their friendship. But the Hyuuga clan had been quick to squash these nice sentiments.

Even his relationship with his brother had suffered from it. Until then they had somehow managed to ignore the burden of the seal that rested on Hizashi forehead. After Hiashi had taken his father's place as their clan head, it was like a physical barrier between them.

She knew she had completely failed to keep her distaste for the practice to herself. Hiashi had served them the very arguments he used to disdain as a child, and grew mad and irritated at them refusing to understand. The gap had only widened from then on.

And then, Hizashi had died. For him.

Hiashi had reacted the exact opposite way Tsume would have. The clan’s rules were responsible for his brother’s death, and, desperate to make sense of them, of Hizashi’s sacrifice, of his family’s pain, he had decided that what they needed was to reinforce these rules at all cost.

She saw where he came from, in a way. If he disavowed the Hyuuga’s rules now, what was the point of Hizashi’s death? He wasn’t over the loss of his twin, and she doubted he ever would. She remembered him kneeling by his empty grave because his body had been ceded to the shinobis from Kumo – something they weren’t supposed to know about, but they were still a team, back then, and he could never have hidden such a thing from them. They had done their best to support him through it with Shibi, even if they didn’t approve of his choices.

Tsume had drawn the line though, when it had started to affect the youngest ones.

Hiashi seemed unaware that where he had lost a brother, Neji had lost his father. He had simply refused to see the boy’s pain. He had crystallized their house system in every and all of their interactions. She wondered if in a way he thought that was what he should have done from the start, if he believed he could have spared himself some pain, had he not been so close to Hizashi. If he raised Hinata the way he did so that she wouldn’t be weak to it, like he had.

She had tried her hardest to get through to him, but in the end, he didn’t think he was wrong, and she couldn’t stand to watch it.

She hurt for him now, all the time, and she hurt for what they had lost. But there was nothing she could do to help him.

She set wiped her mouth, the cookies gone. At least she had grown out of the habit of breaking things when she was angry. It wasn’t a good look on a clan head and a mother. She was forever grateful that none of her kids had inherited her anger issues.

“Better?” Shibi asked. His sunglasses were gone again – he looked sad.

“Yeah. Sorry about that.”

"Don't be."

“I didn’t mean to drag you into this. If you’re not on board…”

“Shino is giving Naruto some bugs.”

Her eyes widened in surprise.

"For his plants. Shino asked. He said the boy was a friend, who had his trust. So I agreed."

Tsume often found herself overwhelmed by the affection she had for that weirdo. Shibi was her oldest friend, they had known each other their entire life. The Aburame and the Inuzuka had always been close, out of circumstances at first, more than affinities. The Aburame creeped out the rest of the village with their bugs and strange way of life, and the Inuzuka were considered dirty savages. It was natural that they stuck together – and they had made good of it too. The Aburame raised bugs that cleared the Inuzuka’s dogs of fleas and ticks, and the Inuzuka helped in turn to feed chakra to the insects. Some of their dogs were trained in that sole purpose.

It should have been weird that they had stricken up a friendship with the Hyuugas of all people, who were so refined and prideful. But they had the creep factor too, courtesy of their strange eyes, and the clan was full of weirdos, they just were good at hiding it. They used to get up to all kind of mischief with Hiashi and Shibi, when they were younger.

She hoped that maybe their kids could rekindle that old bond, but Hiashi would have to agree on their team to be formed for that to happen, and she feared he wouldn’t.

Damn, this was such a mess.

“He will come around,” Shibi said confidently. He had been saying this for years, trust never wavering that their friend would find his way back to them, that he would let go of his forging ahead and realize that he had not lost _everything._

Shibi believed that, and Tsume tended to believe him. She nodded.

.

Kiba had planted himself in front of their little group and declared, with a tone that suffered no argument whatsoever, "guys, you're coming over at my house for a sleepover on Saturday!"

The others had reacted with varying degrees of annoyance and eagerness, but they had all complied – even Shino, even if he looked completely indifferent to the ordeal. Sasuke, for his part, had no idea if he actually wanted to go or not, so he had done what he usually did in these situations – defer to Naruto.

“What d’you say Sasuke?” Naruto had whispered. “D’you want to?”

Naruto wouldn’t go without him, that was for certain. He hung out with the other boys without Sasuke at times, but this was different. He wouldn’t be out an entire night while Sasuke stayed at home alone. Naruto wanted to go and going would make Naruto happy – that all but made up the choice for Sasuke.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. If it’s alright with your mother, Kiba,” Sasuke had said. Naruto’s smile had dimmed, if only a little, but Kiba hadn’t missed a beat.

“Of course it is! It was her idea!”

The matter was settled then.

On Saturday afternoon they packed a small bag – small after Sasuke had made Naruto empty his to redo it again, explaining that no, he wouldn’t need his calligraphy kit or his watering can for a sleepover. Naruto was vibrating with excitement, but he listened without complaint, deeming Sasuke the expert out of the two of them. Sasuke hadn’t been to that many sleepovers, mostly with his cousins when he was younger, but Naruto had been to none at all, so it did make Sasuke the expert in a way.

The Inuzuka clan lived on a huge estate at the edge of the village, away from the other districts. They met with Shikamaru and Choji on the way, while Shino was waiting by the entrance of the clan’s land. He knew his way around – he was the one to show them to the main house.

They were greeted by a beaming Inuzuka Tsume. There was a massive dog sitting at her side, and Sasuke couldn’t help but try to keep his distance with it as much as he could.

“Hello boys, welcome! I’ll leave you to it soon, I promise, but first I have a very important question to ask you. Is any of you afraid of dogs?”

Sasuke wasn’t expecting it, and he wasn’t as quick as the others to answer. Sasuke didn’t want to say anything, because he wasn’t _afraid_ of dogs, he just wasn’t fond of them either, especially dogs almost as tall as him that looked like they couldn’t wait to lick his entire face.

He couldn’t say that. This was the Inuzuka estate – surely answering anything other than “no” would have him kicked out in no time. She seemed to pick up on his hesitation anyway, because she addressed him directly next.

“Our dogs are very well-behaved. If one of you isn’t comfortable with them, they will stay clear and let you approach them on your own term.”

Sasuke could feel his face heat up and he couldn’t look away from her smiling face, because that would mean cross one his friend’s gaze and he didn’t want that.

Count on Kiba to ruin that as always.

“Don’t worry Sasuke, they can tell anyway!” he exclaimed cheerfully while dropping an arm on Sasuke’s back, almost making him tumble to the floor. He mumbled something incoherent, embarrassed, but the subject was thankfully dropped.

The others scattered around to play with the many, _many_ dogs running around the house. Naruto cast him a questioning look, but Sasuke gestured for him to go along – he was fine sitting this one out.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said to Kiba’s mother once they were alone. “It’s not that I’m scared, but, hum…”

“Don’t worry about it kiddo, it’s fine. Grown ass men are intimidated when they visit us you know. There’s no shame in it. Besides, all guests are entitled to have a good time at my house.”

“Th-thank you,” he said, a little mystified. He couldn’t remember the last time they had met an adult so completely at ease with them. Between Naruto being shunned and Sasuke being pitied or avoided awkwardly, they never felt like they were part of that world, part of the crowd. They always seemed to stand apart.

“I guess I’m more of a cat person,” he said, decided to attempt something of a conversation.

“What?”

He startled, surprised at the abrupt tone.

"That, I can't accept," she said, completely serious. Sasuke froze, horrified.

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

Her harsh expression cracked up immediately into one of worry.

“Oh sage, no, no! Shit, I’m sorry, that was a joke, a joke! I’m joking!”

She was waving her hands around and her sudden panic made him forget his own – she looked so distressed, like she had committed a great misstep.

“Damn, I always end up scaring kids,” she said, sheepish. “I’m sorry, Sasuke. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

He shook his head dumbly, overwhelmed by that rollercoaster.

“I really didn't mean it. We like to joke about this ‘cause we have this reputation of hating cats, for some reasons? Which is blatant disinformation, I assure you. We care for all and any animals here, and we even have a few of them wandering around, if you… oh, look!”

She crouched down to snatch a small cat trying to slip between her legs to enter the house. It didn’t protest, seemingly accepting its fate and settling into her arms. It was black and white, fur sticking out at odd angles.

Sasuke was enthralled.

“Do you want to hold her?”

She handed him the cat without waiting for an answer. They had never had a cat that was really there’s at home, but the Uchiha district was crawling with them, and they were very friendly. Sasuke liked to hang around the spots their favored, just to spend time in their company. They had gotten used to him enough to come greet him when he showed up.

They probably still hung around there now. Or maybe they had moved, now that there was no one around to leave a bit of food and water out for them.

The cat stared at him, curious. Sasuke couldn’t look away.

In the end, he stayed on the porch to play with the cats while his friends ran around the field. Shino joined him soon enough, not much one for running around either. They didn’t share a word. It wasn’t unpleasant.

They hadn’t lied to him – all the dogs kept their distance, without actively avoiding him. Only the youngest ones approached him a little to see if they could get a pat on the head. It seemed to make them happy, when Sasuke got around to do it.

In the evening, they all piled up in Kiba’s room, covered in extra futons for the occasion. They were allowed to skip dinner at the table and have snacks in there instead – Kiba’s mother had stocked up enough to feed them for three days, and they went through it while swapping ninja stories and memories of past mischief.

Sasuke managed to tell them about that time he and some other Uchiha his age had wanted to paint the Uchiha crest on one of their walls while their parents were out. He felt a bit dizzy by the end of it, and his heart was beating very fast, but it made them laugh, and Naruto rested an arm around his shoulder, a silent support, and it wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be. He stayed mostly silent for the rest of it, but so did Shino, and it didn’t seem to bother anyone. The other boy told only one story too, about him and his cousin "accidentally" setting a hive of their bugs free at school so that classes would get cancel. It was quite shocking coming from super serious Shino, but Sasuke supposed it was the same for him. Just because they kept to themselves and didn’t talk a lot didn’t mean they didn’t have fun too, sometimes.

They fell asleep playing cards, lying in a circle on their stomach, and Sasuke thought he would have a hard time sleeping in that foreign place with so many people, but he was exhausted and he felt safe, and warm. He slept like the dead.

The next morning they shared breakfast with the rest of the Inuzuka clan – and their dogs – and when the time came to leave, Kiba’s mother asked them if they had had a good time, and if they would want to come back.

They all said yes, and, Sasuke thought, they all meant it.

.

Naruto took a deep, steadying breath, readjusted his goggles on his forehead, and took two more steps toward Shino, before chickening out and taking three more back.

Why, why was it still so hard? They were friends! They had said it! They had even had a sleepover! That had to mean something for sure. Girls were always so excited about sleepovers, and Naruto had always been curious at it but he had no idea how cool they were before going to his first one. The night they had spent at Kiba’s house was easily in his top five best moments of his life ever.

The point was, Shino was his friend and he had no reason to be so hesitant. But he didn’t want to bother the other boy. Naruto was aware that he could be a little… overwhelming, was the nicest word that had been used, and Shino didn’t look like he liked to be overwhelmed. Besides, Naruto wanted to ask questions about the bugs, _again,_ and wouldn’t Shino start to worry if Naruto kept asking and asking? Didn’t it make it look like he didn’t know what he was doing? But he just wanted to be sure he treated them right, even if there was not much care to provide to the small insects Shino had given him. No matter how much Naruto has insisted, Shino had refused to take any money for it, saying that they didn’t sell the bugs, they only gave them away to provide services and were provided services in return at some point. It stressed Naruto out because what could he possibly do for Shino that would even it out? The boy didn’t seem to care much. But Naruto did.

One last time, Naruto thought. He would bother him one last time with his questions. He just wanted to be sure that they were suited to all type of plants – he had many, and he didn’t want either the plant or the bugs to get sick.

Before he could act on it though, class resumed, and he was left to wait out until the day was over. He told Sasuke to go home without him and bolted after the other boy as soon as they were dismissed. It was unfair how hard Shino was to tail. Naruto was the best at tailing people, but Shino was surely the best at losing them.

Naruto eventually found him on a lone bench under a big tree that stood alone in a small, secluded square. He crossed the distance between them before he could think that now maybe wasn’t the best time.

“Hi, Shino, sorry to bother you, again, I was…”

The tears took him completely off guard. As soon as Shino looked up, Naruto felt his eyes water, his throat close up around a dry sob. He tried to reign it in – he had promised he’d make an effort to tone down the crying because it freaked Sasuke out every time, but he wasn’t very good at it. It was impossible to tell if Shino was actually crying or not, but in any case he was very, very sad.

“What’s going on? What happened?”

Naruto sat on the bench next to Shino, concern pushing his own questions out the window.

“Is it your bugs again? They got sick?”

“No.”

Naruto agonized over whether or not he could to ask more question. He desperately wanted to do something, but everyone needed different help, and sometimes they didn’t want any at all. It was a lesson he was trying to learn, even if it was hard. He didn’t want to just do nothing.

They sat there for a while, under the shadow of the tree. The worst of the summer heat had passed, but the air was still warm and heavy, weighing them down. Naruto wished it would last forever, for fall to never come. He hated the fall.

“It’s my cousin.”

Things never kept still though.

“The one you talked about the other day?”

“Hm.”

“Is he sick? Or you had a fight?” Naruto asked, with the confused feelings that it wasn’t that.

“He died.”

Naruto was struck speechless, as Shino leaned over to rest his elbows on his thighs, to curl around himself. Naruto couldn’t deal with death. Despite being well acquainted with Sasuke’s pain, he still didn’t understand it. He could only imagine what losing people felt like, and not even people that mattered in that way, people that had been in his life forever.

There was no one like that, for him.

He couldn’t picture the weight of memories, the futures that were washed away by death. Until very recently, Naruto had been unable to project himself in the future in any way. He saw himself as Hokage one day, but there were nothing and no one standing in between.

“I’m very sorry,” he said clumsily, because he knew that’s what you were supposed to say.

"It's been a few months already, but I am still sad, sometimes, when I think of him."

“Were you very close?”

"We weren't really cousins, but we grew up together. He was closer to a brother. Like you and Sasuke, I believe."

“Please don’t say that.”

Shino raised an eyebrow, puzzled.

“What?”

“Sasuke is not my brother.”

Naruto really, really didn’t want to get into that now. Mercifully, Shino didn’t insist.

“I guess I miss him.”

“What's… what happened to him?”

“He died on a mission.”

Naruto hummed. Of course – who didn’t? It was almost like he could recognize Shino's pain. Naruto saw it often, on faces around the village and sometimes in his classmates too, because death was something that happened very often, for them.

“I’m very sorry.”

“Thank you.”

Shino looked just a little less down. Naruto counted that as a win.

“We can stay like that for a while. If you’d like.”

Shino looked at him for a long moment, inscrutable, before giving the tiniest possible nod.

And so they stayed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Wild Cool Mom appears !
> 
> If I say I like Shino, are you gonna sense a pattern where I just like all of those kids period. Next and conclusive chapter of this part is Sakura, and the next part will be focused on that brother comment from Naruto mong other things :) In which Naruto will be Not Fine. You can come say hi on [tumblr](https://inrainprose.tumblr.com), and I hope you enjoyed this! Let me know! Love.


	10. Sakura

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally wrapping up that part! I got caught up in my other fic and a drawing project I started. I blurted that one out very fast, no idea how it holds up haha, but I hope you'll like it!

“Sorry that you have to do this.”

Looking up from her exercise sheet, Sakura was met with the bright splash of Naruto’s hair, his head still bent over his own. She must have let out a heavier sigh than she meant too. They were sitting across from each other at the teacher’s desk of their classroom, since Iruka was already gone.

“I told you, I don’t mind.”

“But wouldn’t you like to be doing something else?”

“Well, yeah, but you too, right?” she tried. His eyes were still trained on his paper even though he wasn’t writing anything.

“I don’t have the choice. I _have_ to finish this somehow. But you’re done with your homework already. You could be hanging out with your friends or something.”

Of course, he wasn’t wrong. The process of helping him through his work was long and tedious, often frustrating, even if they both did their best not to let it get to them. She would have thought it would have been more unpleasant than this actually, with him dragging his feet and her having to rough him up to get him to work. But if anything, he was the most exasperated one out of the two of them. Frustrated with himself.

And she was invested in helping him now.

“Well, I am, ain’t I?”

That finally got her a look, puzzled and incredulous. She blushed lightly – she was often left helpless by his big, earnest eyes, by the openness of his emotions shining through.

“What?”

“I am. Hanging out. With a friend.”

She didn’t know why it was such a big deal. It was just Naruto. But she hadn’t always been the nicest to him in the past, and she was always wondering when he was going to bring that up, to remind her that if she was a friend, well she wasn’t a very good one.

But she also knew that he wouldn’t. Naruto wasn’t like that.

Case in point, the worry and confusion cleared out of his face, replaced by a blinding smile as he nodded vigorously, looking so pleased, by such a simple thing.

“Yes you are! And I am too!”

She blushed again. She couldn’t help it. It was just nice to hear.

It made her feel even guiltier at how reluctant she had been to do this in the beginning. Iruka-sensei had called both of them to stay after class one day a few weeks ago, and kindly asked her if she would accept to tutor Naruto so that he could catch up on the basics he was lacking. They were fast approaching the assessment exams that would determine if they could stay in the grade they were in, and both Iruka and Naruto were anxious for the boy to perform well and be allowed to stay in his current class. She knew Sasuke was helping him already, but there was only so much he could teach of things he had been taught intuitively from a young age. As a civilian, Sakura had had to learn everything about the shinobi world and ways at her entrance at the Academy, and thus Iruka thought she would be best at helping Naruto out. Besides, Sasuke was first in their class, yeah, but she was still the best student book-wise. Ino said it was all that space in her big head, it had to be stored up with knowledge in order not to cave in. It was sort of a compliment, probably.

So Iruka had gotten to her with flattery, and she had kinda regretted accepting so fast later on, when she had discovered the extent of Naruto’s ignorance. She had to give credit where credit was due – it was actually a miracle that he managed to do anything at all in class, with all that he didn’t know. She supposed he had a strong memory and mimicking skills, and could sort of guess what was expected of him from previous examples. Of course that meant that anything more advanced or outside the box became a terrible struggle. Sakura maybe wasn’t as bad as Sasuke at explaining things she thought were obvious, but it was still utterly mystifying sometimes, the questions Naruto could ask, and not only about shinobi study, or even school.

The other day, he had asked her what was the “real” way of differentiating between boys and girls.

A question she had quickly thrown out the window with a furious blush, but not before telling him that no, neither clothes nor hair length were an absolute criteria.

She had been angry at Iruka-sensei for about twelve seconds, before admitting that one, he couldn’t know how well a sentence such as “that would be really helpful and nice of you” could work on her, and two, she knew it wasn’t out of laziness or disinterest that he wasn’t tutoring Naruto himself. Their teacher worked way too hard. The class had gifted him with a nice pillow on his last birthday for when he took naps in the teacher’s lounge – he was always there, always available, the first one to arrive and the last one to leave. None of the other teachers put in nearly as much work as he did. And as a matter of fact, none of their other teachers got any present from their students on their birthday.

The thing was, Sakura _wanted_ to be useful. She wanted to be seen as a girl who helped out others, who could be asked for support, who did things because she was nice. Sometimes it made her feel bad, because she knew she wasn’t that nice, she just wanted people to believe she was. But Ino said that it didn’t matter because at the end of the day, she did do nice things for others, so who cared? Ino didn’t care about being nice at all.

Lost in thought, it took Sakura a moment to notice that Naruto was sighing louder and louder, his usual way of signifying he needed help without actually daring to ask.

“Having trouble with the chakra diagrams?” she asked, doing her best to keep her voice open, not condescending or impatient, even if she had a tough time getting what was so hard about those that he couldn’t do them.

“…I did it the way you said but…”

“Let me see. I’ll explain again.”

She would explain it a hundred times if that’s what it took, but he _would_ get it or so help her.

He didn’t seem on board though.

“It’s no use,” he said, throwing his pencil on the table. “I’m just too stupid to get it.”

Sakura had heard Naruto being called stupid a lot. A _lot._ Stupid, an idiot, a dumbass. Sometimes she had been the one to say it. And she always thought it wasn’t such a big deal because they all called each other stupid and dumb all the time and it didn’t mean anything, it wasn’t for real.

Except that was yet another thing that you were supposed to learn first. Naruto was bad at school, he had trouble staying focused and he needed longer than others to understand what they were taught. And there was no one to tell him that when other kids called him stupid, they didn’t really mean it, they didn’t think about what they were saying.

Besides, she had heard it coming from adults too.

“You’re not stupid,” she declared firmly. He just shrugged, unconvinced, slumped on the table like he couldn’t bear his own weight suddenly, and no, no, that wouldn’t do.

She jumped on her feet and grabbed his shoulders above the desk, so that he would sit up and look at her.

“Listen to me. You’re NOT stupid. Stupid is… it would be thinking that you don’t need to know stuff because you just want to punch people in the face or… or saying that girls can’t be good shinobis ‘cause they’re too soft. Or being mean to people just because they aren’t as good as you, or not listening to people who know better. And you’re not like that. You’re nice, and you try and… and you’re going to _listen_ to me, because I _do_ know better than you, right?”

He stared at her, dumbstruck, mouth hanging.

“ _Right?”_ she asked again.

“Y-yeah. Yeah. Okay.”

“Okay. You listen, because I’m right. You’re not stupid, and you’re going to get this. Deal?”

“…Deal.”

They went back to their diagrams, and he did get it eventually, and it was the first time Sakura understood the appeal of being a teacher.

.

They usually did it at school, after the classes were done and everyone had gone home. She didn’t want to invite him over to her house, worried that her parents would make him uncomfortable, and he didn’t invite her to his, because of reasons probably. One wasn’t so easily let into Naruto and Sasuke’s place – in fact, rumor had it that only Shikamaru had had that privilege, and also two kids from the years above them for some reasons. The boy with the awful bowl cut and the girl from the weapon shop. They could be seen conspiring sometimes on the school ground, all four of them. The only time Sakura had approached them close enough to eavesdrop, they were talking about laundry detergent, and she had quickly bolted. 

That was to say, he didn’t invite her.

Until today.

There was no reason nor logic behind it, he didn’t give any explanation. He just said “let’s go to my place this time!" and he led her through the streets and all the way to the old building she knew hosted the two boys’ flat.

It was so sudden, she didn’t have time to prepare herself. She was going to see where Sasuke and Naruto lived! That was exciting. She felt both smug and humbled at the vote of confidence, even if Naruto was most likely acting on a whim, without having thought this through.

He called a loud “I’m home” when they crossed the threshold, making her believe Sasuke was already home, but no answer came, the flat was empty. The door was sporting both their symbols, and it was so insane. This is where they lived. It was their place. There was no adult around. It was all on them.

The clothes drying in the corridor, the cleaning done not too long ago judging by the smell, the neat stacks of vegetables on the kitchen counter, the many many plants flourishing all over, it was all on them. She thought about her mother always berating her for doing the dishes and handing over her dirty laundry instead of letting it rot in a corner of her room, and of what a huge pain it was.

Maybe she ought to be nicer to her.

They settled at the kitchen table. He didn’t offer to show her around and she didn’t ask – it would have been too much, she thought. It wasn’t like when she visited Ino’s or Kiba’s house. For her and her friends, it was their bedroom which was home, where they lived and hung out. The rest of the house wasn’t so personal. But here she was in Naruto’s space already. The one he shared with Sasuke. She already felt like she was intruding.

At least the studying went well. He had remembered most of what she had walked him through last time – at this rate, he would be caught up to the rest of the class’s level and ready to take on their general assessment sooner than she thought. It felt weird to be a little disappointed by this.

They were interrupted by the front door opening.

“I’m home.”

“Welcome back!”

Sakura was frozen in place as Naruto jumped from his chair to go greet Sasuke. She had hoped to see him tonight, but now she was worried he would be displeased by her presence, and she had no idea how to act.

“Did you buy what I said?”

“Hm. ‘Course.”

“Cool!”

Sasuke greeted her with a nod. He didn’t look that angry, but it was always hard to tell with him. He went to put his purchase on the counter – food, from what she could gather while avoiding looking in his general direction, blushing furiously.

“Sakura, this is for you!”

Focused on Sasuke, she had forgotten there was another one she ought to be wary of. He was thrusting a box in her face that she had no choice but to take. She stared at it, unblinking.

“It’s…”

“Daifuku! With anko filling. You like those right?” he asked, a little worried, as if _that_ was the issue.

It was one of her favorites. Not that she had ever told him that. Or had she? She was very confused.

She couldn’t help turning toward Sasuke, trying to gauge his reaction or get a general feeling of what was happening exactly, but he had his back to her, busy with putting food and supplies away.

“It’s to thank you. For your help!” Naruto supplied, puzzled by her lack of reaction. She realized she would have to say something soon if she didn’t want to look like a complete idiot.

“I… thank you. You didn’t have to. You know Iruka-sensei asked me so…”

“Yeah, but you could have said no! And you’ve been very good at this. So take it!”

“I… yeah. Yeah, okay.”

He beamed, so bright and joyful, and Sakura wondered how Sasuke could bear that all day every day without facing spontaneous combustion.

“She took it, Naruto. Now go back to your work,” Sasuke snapped from behind her. Naruto pouted but dutifully went back to his jutsu classification chart.

That’s was life was like, for them. They had to be the ones to think of thank you gift and grocery shopping. They had to be the ones to push each other to study, eat, sleep, clean up. No one could do it for them.

It was so foreign to her. She had always been told she was mature for her age, and Naruto would certainly be called the opposite, but which of them was the most grown-up one really? Sasuke was cooking in her back – something else she only had a very flimsy grasp on. Her mother kept meaning to teach her, but they didn’t get along that well, so Sakura had never worked up the will to endure that. Her mother always said it would be useful, later.

Later, when she lived alone. Later, when her parents were no longer there.

She wondered if Sasuke’s mom had had the time to teach him, or if he, too, had been unwilling, too lazy or just not interested. Wondered if it was yet another thing he and Naruto had had to figure out on their own.

“Sakura? Are you alright?”

She snapped back to herself to Naruto’s concerned face – she must have zoned out.

“Isn’t it hard? To be living alone?”

Sasuke’s movement halted, silence fell briefly on the little room. She closed her mouth hastily, cursing her big mouth she couldn’t keep close. Naruto wasn’t fazed though. He smiled, although it was more subdued than what she usually saw on his face.

“We’re not alone,” he said simply. Sasuke resumed his preparation at the counter, and she was reminded that this was something of a recent development for them.

They used to be alone for real.

She had been jealous to hear they were living together, making their own life and sharing each other’s space. She felt stupid for it now. It wasn’t luck that had put them on that path, or even a choice. It was bad circumstances first, and then trying to make the most of it.

“I see,” she said lamely, not knowing what to say anymore. She was more upset by this than they seemed to be. She supposed they had made their peace with it. It’s not like they had a choice.

“I’m done!” Naruto exclaimed, handing her his paper without much regards for her internal struggles. She took it with a smile, grateful for the ease with which he could banish spiraling thoughts, bring them back to more earthly concerns.

She checked out his answer quickly. His handwriting was awful but…

“All good.”

“Really?”

“After the fifth try, it’s about time,” Sasuke commented. Naruto stuck his tongue at him, although the other boy couldn’t see it.

“Don’t be mean, Sasuke!” he exclaimed. He didn’t look offended though, even if it _was_ a bit mean in her opinion. “Oh, are we having ramen?” he asked, pointing at the noodles Sasuke was getting out of their package.

“…You did good,” was Sasuke’s only explanation. Naruto beamed.

“That I did!”

All the time Naruto had assured them that Sasuke wasn’t nearly as hard to understand as everyone thought, and she was finally seeing it now. People had a way of being careless with words, she thought. They never gave it the same importance, lying or telling the truth, under or overstating in turn. It wasn’t so weird, then, to rely on other things to convey meaning more clearly.

Like food.

Which reminded her that she had to think about that too.

“I should get going,” she said, packing up her stuff. Dinnertime was approaching fast and she wanted to avoid being lectured again about how “this house is not an inn” and how she wasn’t “old enough to just do whatever she pleased”. Looking around her though, looking at what it truly meant to be free of parental authority, she couldn’t say she envied it.

Naruto and Sasuke exchanged a complicated streak of facial expressions, before seemingly coming to a compromise that had Naruto pouting.

“Maybe you can have dinner with us next time,” he said, glaring at Sasuke who had probably vetoed the proposition for right now. She chuckled. They were ridiculous.

“Maybe.”

When she made it home, her father was tending to their small garden while her mother was indeed busy in the kitchen. She greeted her without prying as to where she had been – they had had enough arguments lately about Sakura not having to tell them about every single thing she did, and her having the friends she wanted, even if they didn’t like it. At least her mother wasn’t trying to convince her that Naruto was a dangerous delinquent anymore. They compromised by skipping the subject altogether.

“I’m making ramen,” her mother said, and Sakura smiled, thinking about Naruto’s excitement, his reward for his efforts, a sure way of making him happy. Her mother would make anmitsu, if she was feeling down, or when she would graduate from the Academy.

It had to do with love, probably.

“Do you want some help?”

The complete bafflement on her mother’s face was pretty vexing, but Sakura tried to get past it and stepped closer, to show that she meant it.

“You… well, you can… chop the spring onions. If you’d like.”

There was great skepticism in her mother’s voice as to whether or not she would be able to do that. Sakura rolled her eyes, but complied. It was awkward. They never had much to say to each other, they didn’t understand each other at all. She didn’t think her parents had ever recovered from her asking to go to the Academy to become a shinobi, instead of taking the civilian path, like both of them. She knew they didn’t understand her choice, and she didn’t see it changing anytime soon. But at least they weren’t stopping her either.

And they loved her. As she loved them. That was a good start.

.

It took her a few days to build up the courage, but it had to be done, and so she would do it. She was convinced she would feel better afterward, and had to hang on to that certitude as she waited at the edge of the training ground for Sasuke and Naruto to wrap up training with bowl cut boy – she thought his name was Lee, but they hadn’t been introduced.

“Hi, Sakura!” Naruto exclaimed as soon as he spotted her, sprinting toward her. “What are you doing here? Lee, this is Sakura, she’s in our class. Sakura, this is Lee! He’s our taijutsu master.”

“Naruto, I told you not to call me that…”

Naruto laughed at the other boy’s embarrassment.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Sakura said politely, if a bit tight. She didn’t want to lose momentum now, she just wanted to talk to Sasuke.

Lee put a damper on that thought by turning an absurd shade of red as soon as they made eye contact. He tried to stammer something out, but it was indecipherable. Sakura felt herself blush as an instinctual reaction. What was wrong with that guy?

“Is-is there a problem?” she asked weakly, trying to remember if they had met before and what she could have possibly done to him. He startled at the question, straightened up, and blurted out very loudly, “You’re very pretty!”

Her own blush came on full force, cheeks heating up enough it would have worried her mother. She felt herself redden all the way to the tip of her ears and the roots of her hair, as Lee flayed over himself, looking mortified by the outburst. Sasuke was long-suffering, Naruto, merely curious.

"I guess it's true," the blonde boy said conversationally, oblivious as usual to the effect of his words. Sakura hid her face behind her hands, trying to cool down a bit. This wasn’t going the way she wanted at all.

First, she had to be polite, so she managed to squeak out a “thank you, Lee”, that made steam escape from his whole face before he stuttered something that sounded like “I’m leaving now bye” or maybe just “Leaves don’t die”. That was one issue less at least.

“He’s weird,” Naruto said with a smile, obviously endeared by the display. It was a compliment in his mouth.

“Anyway,” Sakura dismissed, waving a hand around like she could wipe out that entire thing, even if her cheek were still red. She needed to focus. “I wanted to talk to Sasuke. If it’s okay?”

“It’s fine, I’ll leave you to it!” Naruto said immediately, and bolted in the direction of their flat to give them a little privacy. Sakura and Sasuke stayed a little dumbstruck for a moment, unprepared to this sudden predicament, even though it was exactly was Sakura was hoping for.

“What do you want then?” Sasuke said, breaching the silence since she was still trying to work up the nerves herself. She could recognize now that this bluntness was his reaction when he was on the defensive or uncomfortable – she wondered what he was imagining she would ask of him. It wasn’t a very nice feeling, that he was so wary of her.

Hopefully, she would put an end to it.

She had thought about what she would say, but it eluded her now. She decided it would be best to just be straightforward. Sasuke wasn’t as bad as Naruto when it came to this, but it was a close thing, and she didn’t want to drag it out any more than it had to.

“I wanted to ask you if you wanted to go out with me. For a date.”

The other advantage was that the best way of getting a straight answer out of Sasuke was to ask him a straight question. He usually blurted out the truth faster than he could come up with a lie.

“I don’t think so, no.”

He grimaced, sheepish, but she only smiled.

“Okay. I… kind of expected it. But I wanted to ask, just in case.”

“I’m sorry.”

Maybe it was even true, even if he surely had no idea what he was sorry for.

“It’s fine. I swear! I’m not going to cry or anything. But since… well, since it’s a no on that I was wondering if… If we could be friends still?”

She was surprised to discover how this one weighed much more on her mind. She didn’t want him to say no. She liked that they hung out together, all of them, she liked that they were becoming friends. For real, real friends, good friends. Her mother used to ask her, when she came back from school or from another girl's house, "did you have a good time with your friends?" and Sakura rolled her eyes and huffed because she had just been having… time. When her mother saw her friends, she always looked happier afterward, and Sakura didn’t really get it because she couldn’t say that spending time with the girls at school ever brought her much joy.

She got it now though. She got that it could be really nice, to be with others, to share time and space, even when they didn’t do much. Even if they weren’t in love.

She did love them. It was great.

“Yes.”

She startled a little.

“Yes?”

“Yes. We’re friends.”

He wasn’t looking at her, face half-hidden in his collar in a move she used to find cool and mysterious, but was actually just him being embarrassed. He really had a beautiful face.

“Great.”

She waited for him to have made his goodbyes and run toward Naruto to cry just a little. He had been honest at least. He just didn’t want to. It would still have been nice for him to say yes though, for him to think she was special. But he still talked to so few of their classmates and so few people in general… So maybe she still was, a little.

.

Sometimes, Hinata stayed after class too. She read in a corner while Iruka worked at his desk and Sakura bribed Naruto with candies so that he would stay focused on his lesson. Sasuke often stayed as well. Sakura suspected he didn’t like being alone at their flat that much, even if of course he never said that in so many words.

One day, Kiba stayed behind too.

“I… heard you were helping Naruto out for the exams,” he grumbled, embarrassed.

“…I am.”

“I promised my mom I’d try harder this time. So. I was wondering. You know…”

He joined them for the study sessions.

Shino followed suit because he had to report to Tsume that Kiba was indeed putting in extra studying as he said he was, and not wandering the village with Akamaru. Ino started to hang out with them, complaining that it was the only way to get a hold on Sakura these days. The exams were coming fast, they all started to put in some work.

Since that made for way fewer kids at the playground, Shikamaru and Choji decided to hang back too, and Choji launched the habit of people bringing and sharing snacks during their little study session.

The kids from the year above started stopping by. Lee – who still couldn’t get out two words straight in front of Sakura – because he was waiting for Naruto and Sasuke to be done so that they could train, and the weapon shop girl – Tenten – because she was seemingly attracted by a blade getting sharpened in a one-kilometer radius, and it was Sasuke and Ino’s favorite way of passing the time. As for Hinata’s broody cousin Neji, he was supposed to collect her after class so that they could go home together, and reluctantly stayed around until she wasn’t caught up in whatever nonsense the others had decided to pull that time.

Iruka entrusted Sakura with a key double, as “the most responsible out of them all”, for the time where he left before they did. He said he was glad they had a place to stay where they could just do whatever without being bothered or bothering anyone, and that he trusted they wouldn’t do anything bad.

It became their spot.

Once when the room was crowded and loud she saw Naruto slip out, Sasuke on his heels. Following them into the corridor, she found Naruto on the floor curled up tight around himself, Sasuke’s arm around his shoulder.

“Is he okay?” she asked, concerned. Sasuke nodded.

“He will be fine. It’s just a lot.”

“’m sorry.”

“I told you I didn’t care if you cried.”

And she wanted to ask again because surely things had to be bad, if he was crying?

“You said I should stop crying when I’m happy.”

“You can cry as much as you freaking want.”

Sasuke glared at her at that, like _she_ was going to say something.

She gave him a weak smile and left them to it, went back to the classroom where they were trying to balance Akamaru on the sole of Lee’s feet while he was doing a handstand. She felt a little overwhelmed herself, but in a good way.

They would be fine. Things would be fine.

They weren’t alone.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All's good! It makes me a bit sad that Sai isn't there though :/ he's not having such a good time... Well, he'll join in eventually. So that's the whole Konoha 12 in cahoot haha.
> 
> I saw this post floating around tumblr about how Naruto probably couldn't gender very well. It made me laugh. I also like the idea that Sakura isn't nice in the selfless-and-altruist way, but that she makes a conscious effort to be nice because it's something she values. I made her daughter of civilians here since I didn't in my other fic, I guess she has a "Hermione Granger and magic" kind of approach to the shinobi life, that's why she's so into studying it.
> 
> Anyway. Next time we'll focus back on Naruto's issues. Come say hi [tumblr](http://inrainprose.tumblr.com) and don't forget to tell me what you think!


End file.
